Just as I was born, my fate was destined ruthlessly that I could not see the beautiful world forever.

My Birth

      In my memory, grandma once told me that my mother was an educated urban youth from high school who joined the rush to the rural and mountainous areas in those days of hot political movements and went to work in Shanxi Province. Later she returned to dwell in my grandma's home village to rely on her uncle. She got married there, and in the second year she gave birth to a baby girl that was me.

      One day in the third month after my birth, when my dad was playing with me in his arms, he suddenly found a white spot in one of my eyes. As darkness fell, I kept on weeping that made my worried parents to take me to the hospital for examination. After diagnosis, the ophthalmologist told my parents the trouble of their baby was from congenital cataract and an operation could be given when I grew older. Even though, it might be difficult for the operation to bring my vision to the ratio of 0.1. That was to say that I wouldn't even be able to distinguish the largest alphabet in the visual scale. Dad and Mom could hardly go through such a heavy blow to hear their beloved daughter would be a blind one.

      There was an old saying come down in the area that any one who has born a blind baby should be resulted from the sin of his or her fathers. My parents started to discuss what to do with me. Finally they sadly made a decision to leave me and try to have a healthy baby. Soon mom became pregnant again and they were going to leave me in a pond near the village.


My First Word Was "Grandma"

      From then on, I did not have any milk to drink. Instead, I was given only eight pieces of biscuit in the shape of animals to eat every day. I had no strength to cry out with hunger. Just at the difficult moment, my Grandma came to see mom. Noticed my situation she said, "In any way this baby is a living creature. Nobody can help if she dies, but it is absolutely not allowed to kill her. Grandma could not tolerate to see me in such pitiful situation. She was afraid I might die of starvation and also afraid of my parents throwing me away. So she took me to her home. Granny resigned her job in the factory of the sub-district to spend all her time looking after me. As a result we had to rely on Grandpa's income alone to support the family.

      I have heard from Grandma that I was slightly more than two kilograms at birth. I was already five months old when she saw me for the first time. Our neighbors saw that I was in such a condition of not being able to cry out and my head was supported on my neck with much difficulty. So they all reminded Grandma it might be impossible for her to keep me alive. Grandma insisted she would not give up as long as she breathe. She ordered milk for me and gave me eggs to eat everyday. Two months later I gained on weight and my complexion became fair and clear. Then all the neighbors thought it was a miracle that I lived and grew well. When I was eight months old, Grandma took me to have an operation on my left eye at the ophthalmology department of Beijing Tongren Hospital. Another operation was made on the other eye two months later. Grandma told me she failed to get me a bunk for patient in the hospital at that time. So she had to hold me in her arms and stayed sitting in the corridor. Being afraid that my eyes might be injured by my hands, she remained sitting for seven days and nights. When the bandages was removed I saw the beautiful world eventually for the first time. Unfortunately it would be doomed to be misty in my eyes. In general a baby could see everything around when it was born, while I saw the blurry things only when I was 10 months old. Grandma told me that babies at six or seven months should be able to recognize people. But the silhouettes of the faces seemed all the same in my eyes.

      It is said that the first words from babies are papa and mama. But my first word was Laolao (i.e., GRANNY in Chinese) which I learned at my eleventh month. Granny thought that all her love and kind efforts for me were not in vain. I could walk at one year old. As Grandma told me, all the time each day I walked and called out "Grandma" after her, almost one call every minute, and it seemed as if I was afraid of being left carelessly. She promised to bring me up.


What is Mama?

      As I grew older, I found all the other kids lived with their parents while I was living with my grand parents. I would put up the question "Where have dad and mom gone?" again and again. I remembered Grandma told me that my dad and mom would not take me. That caused me to ask her consistently "Why don't they take me?" Then she would explained it was because I was disobedient. When I learned to be obedient, dad and mom would take me with them. With the growth of my age day by day, my eagerness to learn where they were grew stronger and stronger.

One day, Grandma told me that mom was going to come and see me. I wondered what my mom looked like. Then mom came along with a little girl. I got closer in order to see them more clearly. With a sound of "pa!" I was slapped on the face. Grandma hurried in and lifted me into her arms. Mom said to the girl who slapped me "This is your elder sister. You are not allowed to slap her". I did not cry but figured I should waited to see what would happen. So I hid in a corner watching the strange mom and younger sister. Mom was talking with Grandma. She was saying "It all thanks to your care that enabled Mimi (here she meant me) to live up to this date. Sometimes I might miss her too." Granny said, "I did not expect this at all. When I first brought her back, she was only the size of a kitten and all our neighbors told me she could not live. I just thought I would keep her as a kitten. People usually think kittens and puppies can be easily brought up. So I gave her the name MIMI."

      I listened to their conversation, but understood only a few words in their talk. Gradually, my concern was attracted to the so-called younger sister of mine. She was playing my building blocks and got them so messed up to make me crazy. But I restrained myself and waited until an opportunity finally came. She became thirsty and mom gave her a bowl of water. While she took the bowl and started drinking, I slipped over silently and gave an upward thrust to the bowl that made her choked and coughing. The water also splashed over her face and dripped down her neck. The bowl fell out of her hands, dropped to the floor and broke into pieces. She cried out loudly and I laughed. Mom got angry with me. She tried to comfort my sister and scolded me. But my aunt, mom's youngest sister, said to mom "You've gone too far in unjust way. Both girls are your children alike. But you are so biased." Grandma said to mom: "When children have quarrels, elders always ought to keep out from interfering".

      At that time, we were all childish. Therefore, in just a few minutes, we reconciled. But all the while, I was not able to see her face clear enough. We started to play games of mimic family. Grandma urged us to hurry up with our meals and promised to buy ice suckers for us. I was happy because I liked ice suckers best when I was a kid. So sister and I made a fuss after meal, begging for ice suckers. Grandma first said she was to take us for buying. But mom pleaded to do it herself and Grandma asked her to hold my hand all the time. Mom took us for buying ice suckers together with other delicious food. We all got very happy and started our leaping steps on the way to home. Sister ran in front and I tried to catch up with her. Suddenly I was tripped by a piece of stone and took a tumble. The ice sucker fell out of my hand to a distance and I got hurt on my leg with bleeding. Mom helped me up and said: "Should you run with your poor eye sight?" I cried but really did not understand what she meant. It did not hurt much but I felt sad for the loss of my ice sucker.

      When we got home, Grandma and my youngest aunt heard my crying and rushed out to see what was wrong. Seeing my leg bleeding, Grandma blamed mom: "I've told you to hold her hands and lead her. How did you let her fall down? What to do if she get hurt like that. Don't you think it easy for me to take care of her in the last four years? Yet trouble appeared when you have just taken care of her for a short while." As Grandma continued speaking, mom became impatient and kept on mumbling "Why did you take care of her? I could have left her in the pond. I have told you there would be no use for you to keep alive a blind child. Can you take care of her for the whole life?" She seemed endlessly pouring out such words. Then I saw Grandma started to cry and held me tightly while speaking to herself: "Since I have managed to keep you alive in the world, I will fulfill my responsibility to you". I was hugging to Grandma's chest. So I heard Grandma said those words very clearly. But the serious implications of her words were beyond the appreciation of a four-year old child like me.


Grandma

      In fact, days would be never easy for Grandma since she brought me to her home. I was very headstrong and used to cry so as to usually keep crying for a long time. So people around gave me the nickname 'Night Weeping Chap'. However, Grandma always soothed me and never tried to beat me. She said I often ran a fever that made me go on crying without an end in my early days. She had to keep on holding me in her arms day and night. She gave me all kinds of delicious food she could get. In my memory, all kinds of food were wrapped up in paper in those days. I was greedy like a hungry pussycat and became excited whenever I heard the sound from papers. So every time Grandma handled a piece of paper, I would notice and ask, "Could there be some delicious stuff not given to me? Such questions would make Grandma go laughing loudly and reply "Everything to eat would be for you first of all, my little greedy pussy". Grandma liked cooking dumplings. Dumplings, in her opinion, would be the most delicious food in the world. She taught me how to make them early in the days when I was still a child. She often told me, "Be sure to learn how to make them. Or else who is going to cook them for you when I pass away?"

      Grandma knew my eyes were hopeless. So she tried all the approaches possible for developing my hearing sense and tactile sense.

      When I started learning to walk, Grandma tried to let me know the correct way to go by hearing. She told me: "Echoes could be heard when there are obstacles in front of you. You should listen carefully to the variations among the echoed sounds." At first, I could not understand what she meant. But, after having bumped into walls, trees, doors, as well as wired fences many times, I learned to distinguish the echoes from different objects. Finally, I really got accustomed to walk about by hearing without bumping into any object. However, I was not sensitive to echoes from the wire-typed objects. Even nowadays I still suffer a lot from the numerous hurt of those wired objects. Grandma explained to me, "Wires are too thin to reflect sound wave. Failure in hearing their echoes is normal."

      Grandma also devised many ways in training me. For instance, she threw a coin on the floor and asked me to locate them through groping. For instance, she threw one, two and five cent coins respectively on to the floor, and asked me to guess the sizes by feeling. Just like the other kids, I liked to run and jump around. When I tumbled, Grandma never helped me in getting up. She just encouraged me to stand up by myself. When I was a little older, I liked to play with little friends in our neighborhood. They were usually reluctant to play with me, since they did not like my poor eyesight. Yet whenever they played blind-folded catching, they would come to invite me to play with them. Since whether the eyes were blind folded or not were just the same to me, I could catch them easily. Many kids paid attention to my eyes. They always wanted to know what I could see. They usually gave me a hit and ran away. When I ran after them, they would run around big trees that caused me tumbling and hitting the ground with face and nose. Playing with those kids that way often left me with bloody nose and swollen face, crying home to approach Grandma. Yet Grandma asked me to find a way out. I was troubled by failing to learn what to do. But Grandma encouraged me with the words: "You must find a way out. Because it would be impossible for me to accompany you in your lifetime."

      After a long time I finally found a way to play the game. I kept a pocket full of small pieces of stone ready for hitting back after their hit and ran. Although they could ran very fast in front, their speed of running could never match the speed of my projectiles that followed after them! At first my projectile aiming was poor. So they did not care at all. They just laughed at me and hitting back with stones. So I got crying caused by stone hits many times. But I was not discouraged and practiced aiming all day long. I tried to aim and hit at anything I heard. Grandma saw that and said I was getting naughty as I grew up. I could not tell her my real ambition, because I was afraid she would certainly forbid me to do that way. As the saying goes 'Where there is a will, there is a way', eventually I mastered the skill of hitting every target. Within a few days, almost every one of my little fellow tasted my hits. They continued their hit and run tactics as usual, while I could hit wherever I wanted, since they would make sounds along with running that helped me aim accurately.

      One day, a boy, suspecting my power in hitting back, gave me a strong knock before running off. That hurting hit made me angry so I took out a larger pebble and hit him. The pebble was so large as his head was injured. His genearch went to argue with my grandma. But Grandma could not believe I might hit someone by throwing stone. With the trouble I had made, she had to say a lot to apologize and sooth the boy before they gave up. From then on, she did not dare to allow me to go out and play any more with the worry over my getting into more troubles.


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