In everyone’s life there is happiness and sadness, bitterness and sweetness; I also have joys and sorrows.

When I was little, mum had to go to the mountains to cut firewood. The rest of the family, my sister and I were left home. She enclosed us with the pigs worried of us running all over the place. She put a bit of straw. That was a comfortable place. Dad helped building other people’s house, earning living expenses. A family lives in peace and works happily, “to lead a plain and hardworking life”. Every time my dad had to cultivate land, mum had to carry my sister on the back, dad carried me, sometimes mum helped him carry.

In a blink of an eye a few years have passed, slowly growing up, no more acting like a spoiled child with dad anymore, no longer so naughty. After school, mom and dad went to work to the fields, I made lunch myself. The first time I did rice I didn’t washed it, I put too much water and the egg soup had eggshell. I ate it and left only very little, but my parents told me I was smart. 

Mum got sick when I was 14, dad was running back and forth just to help mum treat the illness. Not even two months after mum was recovered, dad had a stone in his urinary tract blocking his urine. The stomach was full of water, he received several injections but did not improve at all. Mom and sister brought him to a lot of places, treatment was expensive and we had no money. Dad came back home to recuperate. We saw a small tube inserted in his stomach, it was very strange. He used little effort once, leading to wound bleeding, and soon, he left world.

After dad passed away, our family owed tens of thousands RMB. In my family only my sister was earning money. Relatives will not be sorry for us, they always come to ask for money and saying they are short of it, that we need to pay back the money. Once my mother did not have any way out, she fainted of anxiousness.