Source : The internet
That year, she finally decided to leave her gambling addicted husband. In order to escape from the hassle of her husband and creditors, she packed her bags from her old residence in the north, and in great haste, travelled wearily to the south with her three children.
In the days that followed, she woke up at 3:30 in the morning and rode a very old bike to the market to buy food that was required for the day. The bike, which a neighbour gave her, was a second-hand one. Upon returning home, she would attentively roll the ingredients into mouth-watering sushi, and whilst everyone was rushing to school and work, she would set up a stall at the front of the train station to sell the food. After all the breakfast was sold, she would return home, where two of her children would have already gone to school.
Following that, she would take out pieces of sample cloth and sew them together according to the requirements of the factory, of which this would take her a few good hours. At almost midday, whether under the blazing sun or under the heavy downpour of rain, she would take out the second batch of sushi from the fridge, and sold them at whichever busy street she found, whilst at the same time, trying to avoid being caught by the police for illegal street trading.
After the lunches were sold, she would rush home again to sew more clothes until after 4 o’clock in the afternoon, of which she would then prepare some quick meals for her children, put them on the table, and then hurriedly filled her own stomach with some food, and again rode her bike to a company, quite far away, to report for work, and all of a sudden turning into a cleaning lady, where she would hastily clean and tidy up all the units on different floors.
She would arrive home at 10 o’clock in the evening, where her children should already be in bed. She would put in so much effort to maintain her role as a mother, gently ushering them to bed and to sleep. She swallowed back tears of tiredness, exhaustion, hatred, and sadness that almost gushed out from her eyes.
Day after day she persevered. A few years later, she finally managed to save some money, and did not need to sell sushi, which exhausted her most, and she also resigned from the clothes factory. Instead, she worked at a nearby florist shop during the day, but still kept her job as a cleaning lady in the evening. Then another two years passed, her friend sold the florist business to her. She therefore gave up the cleaning job and focussed on running the florist shop.
Gradually, her florist business grew from strength to strength, her reputation was even better than her friends and her standard of living was further improved. The children, who were raised under her motherly love and care, all attained high academic qualifications and achieved extraordinary success.
Whenever she was asked on how she had managed to push her life to such a pinnacle stage, she would always respond in a weeping manner recollecting on her loneliness and frustrations, believing that nobody was more desolate than her, and all that she now possessed was fought by herself. Apparently, she looked proud, but she was desperate beyond comparison in her heart : along this long and lonely road, there was not even a single person who assisted her one little bit.
On her 50th birthday, her children organised a special birthday party for her.
She had worked busily at the flower shop all day and was totally exhausted. When she returned home and walked into the sitting room, loud cheers filled the room that almost rocked the house.
She looked around and saw all her past 20-year old friends, and amongst them many had, at different times, moved to different places to develop their own business. In order to celebrate her birthday, they had rushed back from afar.
Looking back, there was the neighbour who gave her the second hand bicycle. During those years in the neighbourhood, as he was worried about her need to ride the bicycle every day, he regularly maintained it for her ββ and as she remembered this, the fact was, she was the one indebted to him. With other people’s bikes, the more they rode the older they became; with her bike, the more she rode the newer it became, and all this was down to the neighbour who helped her in replacing and installing spare parts from his own pocket.
Another woman, sitting quietly in the corner of the sitting room, smiled at her whilst holding back tears of deep compassion. She remembered this kind-hearted neighbour who, in the early years when she was so busy that she did not even afford time to make dinner, had ever turned up at the same time every evening and no matter what, took her to her house to have something to eat, and would always make her bring some food home for the children.
Quite surprised, she looked around at each of her old friends, some once gave her children clothes continuously for several years; some once helped her repair domestic appliances for free, never demanding any money for parts or maintenance; some once took over her jobs when she was ill; some once volunteered to correct her children’s homework when they were mostly needed, arriving at her house every night to teach them....
These people would have come and gone, and as time went by, it seemed she had almost forgotten their existence.
She turned to her three precious and devoted children and was so overwhelmed that she was speechless. Her success was never just down to her alone, she was not alone in her hardship, far too many people had helped her in sharing the burden. At long last, she was able to let go of her feelings of deep depression.
We should consciously remember and count in detail moments of gratitude in life. There are simply too many people, who have once stretched out their hands and offered glimmers of hope here and there, similar to sand by the seaside, once appearing, and then disappearing without a trace.
When we count in detail how much grace and favour is endowed upon us from heaven, we will realise that we do rely on the support of others in order to have the strength to unceasingly strive forward. The feeling of gratitude soothes all loneliness, and pierces through all the perceived indestructible bitter hardships in life.
There are just too many virtuous people in our life, and perhaps we may not always remember them all. However, throughout our journey in life, there are, in fact, many people by our side who both visibly and invisibly help us. These virtuous people may not necessarily be those who have helped us directly, perhaps they are those who have offended us, or those who have motivated us, as long as they have helped us progress forward, they all are virtuous people, aren’t they? There is a saying: ‘A long journey proves the stamina of a horse and the passage of time tells the true heart from a person.’ In our life, who is the one that does not abandon or desert us?
