In Memory of a Mother | Part 2

1995, her son went into primary school. She couldn't understand why her little boy was slower to catch on anything than most of his peers. Teachers complained to her of this underachiever, telling her to try not to get her hopes up too high.

Besides, her son had such a terrible stutter that he sometimes couldn't even articulate "mama", the simplest word ever pronounced in any human language – he had to pause for a little while after the prolonged first syllable so that he could muster enough strength to push the second out from the back of his throat. What's worse, the frailty of this milksop, constantly suffering from diarrhea and fevers, and shorter and thinner than most boys of his age, touched her nerve-endings and sapped her confidence.

Her pride would by no means permit her to take a pusillanimous reluctance to admit that her son might have developmental delay and slight mental retardation. She would lower her standards for him over her dead body; she demanded that he behave all the time and purchased many books for him to inhale, among which a bulky set of The Chinese Children's Encyclopedia was voluminous enough for him to bury his derisorily tiny brain in.

Her patience wore thin from time to time. One night, she slapped him on the face, and a trail of blood trickled down from his nostril. The feeble brain of that dizzy boy figured he was just having a running nose. He just remained silent, as he usually did, wiping the dripping blood off his face with his palms, not knowing why the nasal mucus was strangely red and why his maaaaaaama was staring at him with a grim face.

The father proved himself a responsible breadwinner. He had taught himself to be an electrician and mechanician so that he could work in a state-owned factory, one of the most desirable options for young men during those years. The integrity of his character, the good relationships with his colleagues, the conscientious devotion to work, and the acute and penetrating intelligence on electrics and mechanics, all came together to win him the title, "Advanced Individual of the Year" almost every year. For a man in his 30s, it was an incredible honour.

He even squeezed every last minute out of his off-work time to start up a small business, a shop of his own, where he could break into an existential sweat to repair all sorts of household appliances and factory machinery to earn extra income, so that his wife and son could live a better life.

He enjoyed a high level of popularity among his peers through his competence, good temper and humorous banter, and earned the respect of his wife through his hard work and responsibility.