Translated…
As the announcer called her name aloud, I saw tears, circling in her eyes, and I knew, that this, is the moment, when she felt the proudest of herself.
A year and a half ago, an accidental car crash caused her life, to go from the climax to the troughs—that morning, just as she’d always done, she rode out on her motorcycle, dropped her daughter off to school, but, as she was half way to her daughter’s school, a truck that ran a red light, hit her from behind, she and her fourth grade daughter were pushed, slid for quite a long way; and, her legs, because they were, dragged, underneath her motorcycle, they became broken, her daughter had a fractured right forearm, contusions on her cheeks, after they were rushed to the hospital, the doctor told her, that they would have to amputate her legs, she’d fainted right then and there.
“Tsai-Ping, you MUST be brave and carry on!”, she was, the second person in the PTA, but I’m older, so I got used to calling her by her name. On the night she was amputated, she’d attempted to end her own life, by SMASHING her own head into the walls, but gladly, she was, caught, in time, by the medical staff and the doctors. As I’d gone to visit her in the hospital, she’d hit her head, hard, against the walls by the front of her hospital bed, I’d pulled back her arms, tried to stop her, kept working hard, to soothe her agitated mood, told her, “You are, a strong woman, how can you get beaten, so easily, by a simple accident? How can you, cry, endlessly, for the rest of your life?”
After she was released from the hospital, Tsai-Ping became wheelchair bound, she’d gone to the hospital for rehabilitations two days per week with her daughter, I recalled my good friend, Mrs. Chang taught dancing in wheelchair in the community center, if I could get Tsai-Ping to dance on wheelchair, it would be, a great kind of physical therapy, wouldn’t it? And so, I’d encouraged her, to take it up, she was shocked, how, can you dance, on a wheelchair? In my encouragement, she’d gone and gave it a shot, and, she’d gotten, really into it too, every day, she’d sweated it all out, at the community center, practicing her dance moves.
This was, the annual sports meeting of our county today, Tsai-Ping along with her classmate in wheelchair dancing, were invited, to perform, on the opening ceremonies, after they’d danced two songs, everybody in the audience gave them a standing ovation; especially as the announcer called out the dancers’ names, when she’d read to Tsai-Ping’s, as she went up on the podium, to receive the certificate for her hard work and achievements by the man in charge of the borough, I saw her tears, falling, freely from her cheeks, she’d lifted up the awards high up in the air, for the world to see.
I know, that this, was the moment that she’s most proud of in her entire life, because she had, “stood back UP”, from the valleys, the troughs, of her own life.
And so, this, is the process of recovery, the woman went from being too depressed, because she lost her legs in the accident, to finding another way to express herself, to make her life meaningful to herself, and, by finding this new hobby, dancing that she’d gotten good at, she was able to find that sense of purpose in her life again.
Life, the Obstacle Course 