No Longer Envious of Others

Translated…

A couple from my community, they’d worked together to set up a business when they were younger, worked hard, started from nothing, to now, having everything.

They have three children, all of whom are excellent, and gone abroad, one by one to study, and, after they’d finished school, they’d all found good jobs overseas, and married and had children, every year around the New Year’s, they’d come back, the three generations got along very well together.  This couple had it all, wealth, well-rounded children, I’m so envious of them.

With the passing of time, the couple’s wealth had increased, and, they’d bought three properties in the city of Taipei, where the housing prices are continuously on the rise, they said, that that way, when their kids come back, they could have a comfortable place to live in.  But, things didn’t go accordingly, these three properties are basically, without inhabitants, the children worked hard in their separate careers, without the time, to come back to visit at all.  But, they’re very optimistic about it, they’d taken the active approach, flown abroad, to be with their young.

Slowly, this couple became elderly, could no longer haul along the heavy luggage, nor could they afford the long flight, in the future to come, they’d spent their days, inside the house.

The garbage pick up routines, the elderly man would go out, each and every night to wait for, every single day.  As the garbage truck parked on the opposite side of the road, the cross sections was eight lanes wide, and, the time for the pedestrians to walk across is too short, and, those who crossed the roads always did it in a hurry, and, some of them must do a slow jog, to make it across in time.

“BANG!” one night, we’d heard this loud noise, the residents all rushed outside to the streets, and, they saw the elderly man, lying there, in the middle of the road, a kind passerby already called the police, the ambulance came, rushed him to the hospital.  Turns out, that the elderly walked too slowly, and the lights turned too quickly, the elderly stood in the middle of the road, not knowing to move forward or back.  The bus driver saw that the lights turned green, and started going, and, HIT the elderly man who was in the middle of the road, the elderly flew outward, and, fell to the middle of the street.

The elderly man is already very old, and, with this accident, he’d died, never returned back to our community again.  In the metro regions with the aging population, it is dangerous, for the elderly to take out the trash, it’s not as simple as “just move over there”.  The elderly’s children rushed back to Taiwan, and, rushed from Taiwan, and, because the elderly woman lost her husband, without the children, to accompany her, she seemed, especially lonely, and looked beaten too.

As I saw, I felt, that having the accompany and love of my husband and children is the most wonderful thing in the world, and I’m no longer envious of others.

And so, this, is still, a LESSON learned, the elderly couple had it all, on the outside, a nice place to live, children who are outstanding, but, NONE of them are close to the parents, they’d all had their separate lives, abroad, and, in the end, the elderly man still died because he was HIT by a B-U-S, and, leaving his aging wife, all alone, with NOBODY else.