It has been about fifty days since my boyfriend’s 47-year old mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and according to the doctor, she might leave us anytime within one year. When I heard this, I feel like someone just throw a bomb to us, and we were destroyed by this truth. I always hope that there will be miracles for her, but every sad news from the hospital makes us feel desperate and hopeless. Life has been hard for us for a long time, especially for our parents. However, we always try our best to be positive, as we think that only if we smile, can life give us a smile in return, but how does it end like this?

I am here saying this not for sympathy or help, I just want to share my experience and feelings here to encourage myself and also people who have similar experience with me to face the problem bravely. In the meantime, I’d like to share the very common but great story about our parents.

My b/f is from the poorest area in the Northwest China, and his parents are very kind and honest peasants. It is very hard to make money for them living there, but they still send their son and daughter to the university, which is just like my beloved parents and many other great parents do. It is actually much harder for them to do that, but they never have any complaints for their efforts. No matter how hard it has been, they always put their kids first. After graduation, me and my b/f tried our best to repay our parents, one of our plan is to buy a big house in Xi’an, and let our parents move to the city and live a good life. We did buy a house in Xi’an, but almost the same time, we got the bad cancer news. There is an old Chinese old saying, “子欲养而亲不待”, which I would prefer to translate as “ time goes by, and one couldn’t stop parents getting old for more repay”. And it makes us heartbroken to accept the truth that our parents can’t live longer, and allow us a little bit more time to fulfill our filial duty. We knew that our parents will get old and leave us permanently someday, so we gave up further education, and start working as soon as we graduated from university, we thought we could have the chance and time to make they live a cozy and happy life, and we never know that the “someday” comes so quickly, so early. It is so cruel, we are scared. We may lose our beloved ones anytime, but how can we accept such cruel reality?

I tried to be positive, and I believe in life, but I can’t accept that this is life. After all, after so much hardship she suffered, why not allow her to get old naturally? People living in the countryside don’t usually go to hospital when they feel uncomfortable, especially for those who live in the rural area where is far from hospital, and also in order to save money, they don’t go to hospital until they get some deadly disease. And that’s the main reason why it has been too late to cure when she is diagnosed with stomach cancer. What a tragedy!

I tried to comfort my b/f, but I know whatever i say to him now is meaningless. Nobody can change the result. Me and my b/f have been together for almost 7 years, and from the first day I knew him, I knew he was very industrious and responsible, he studied very hard, and always tried his best to get scholarship, and he did get several scholarship several times, and he also had a lot of part-time jobs when he was in the university. We always encouraged each other to be strong and excellent, and try our best to make our parents happy, but now, what can I say? What can I do? It makes me desperate to lose my beloved future mother-in- law. Now, it makes me even lose my hope for hope seeing my b/f in deep grieve. Like what grandpa in UK told us that we should be strong for each other, and support each other, I tried, but it is really hard……..

Maybe what I am saying here sounds very negative with a sad tone, may not good for those who happened to read this blog, but I just want to express this out. It is a way of relieving our grief. I do not tell my bad feelings to my friends and people around me, because if I did, they will worry about us, and also feel sad. That is not what I want to see. However, I did tell this to some really important friends whom I knew for a long time but never met, just like some readers of this blog. I trust those kind friends, and they also gave me some advice and encouragement, which I really appreciate, and I would like to say that it is really wonderful to have those friends in my life. I will be their friends forever and they can count on me anytime.

Life is so unpredictable, we may get a newborn baby bring us new life and hope, but we may also lose our beloved ones anytime bring us grief and taking our hope away. Sometimes, we are so hopeless, but we still have to go on for our beloved one, because if we are broken down, our beloved ones will be grieve and hopeless. So I really hope my b/f can be strong, and together with me to face this. Appreciate what we have, and go on, because this is life………

Last but not the least, for those kind readers, please do not feel sad because what I’ve said about the cruel side of life, at least, you have your beloved ones with you. Just appreciate and value your beloved ones, love them, and be loved by them. Live a happy life, that is my wish for all kind people.