A story of love, again!!! Translated…
“My son is getting married again!”, my good friend, Pei-Wen told me, but, she’d reiterated like the boy who cried wolf, “It’s for real this time!” we’d laughed at how she, as a soon-to-be mother-in-law didn’t choose her words wisely, “getting married again” can easily mislead people into believing that it’s the second time with another person.
Five years ago, Pei-Wen’s twenty-seven year-old only son started having an office love affair with a female coworker who’s three years his senior, and they were discussing marriage in the end, and, as both sides of the parents met up and discussed all the details of the wedding, although Pei-Wen didn’t agree with the endless list of things, the rules of the requests from the woman’s family, but for the sake of the bigger picture, she’d still put up with it. To the very end, the mother-in-law stated it so bluntly, that she’d hoped Pei-Wen would sell the suite that she’d prepared from before, for her son’s marriage, and buy another place that’s closer to their house, and claimed that the property needed to be registered in their daughter’s name, for the sake of her security, Pei-Wen was furious, and turned around, and left.
“Is the parents marrying their daughter off? Or are they into getting a brand new property?”, Pei-Wen was furious. The parents couldn’t reach an agreement, the marriage didn’t fall through, and her son became really mad on why his mother wouldn’t compromise, for the sake of his happiness, and, she’d felt bad, because her son was on his in-laws-to-be’s sides, during that time, she and her son rarely spoke to one another, later on, her son asked his company to transfer him to China, to get away from this place of heartbreak.
A Taiwanese bachelor is placed on a high pedestal overseas, but, perhaps it’s because how far away he was from home, the old flames are always the most beautiful, her son never got involved with anybody else, and on his break, when he’d returned to Taiwan, he’d always be alone, this made Pei-Wen’s heart ache. Later on, her son transferred back to Taiwan, slowly, he’d locked himself up in his bedroom a lot, talked on the phones, and, smiles started returning back onto his face again. Is it, a new love? In the end, it was, rekindling the flames with his ex-girlfriend. Pei-Wen acted like she’d discovered the New World, told us the “secret”, we’d asked her, “Are you still against the girl?” loving her son very much, she’d replied, “So long as my son’s happy, I’m willing to compromise.” So true, for ALL the parents in the world.
The woman is thirty-five years old currently, at the age when the alarms are sounding off, and, Pei-Wen still hadn’t shown that she was willing to compromise to her son, and that forceful in-law came, she’d become softened down, told her, that they are willing to skip ALL the rituals and the rules, that they don’t mind about the small suite either, that when they have the money themselves, they can buy their own property then, and, it didn’t matter to them, whose name was on the registry of the property either…the two ladies really hit it off now, immediately, they’d, set a date.
The five years of breakage, finally, got reconnected again, “This time, it’s for real!”, Pei-Wen told me. Back then, the two lovers who couldn’t be together still felt the same way about one another now, and, after everything they’d weathered through separately, they’d still decided that they’re best fitted together, I believe, that they will cherish this once-lost affinity, and make up those five years they’d lost with one another with love.
And so, the first time this marriage didn’t happen, because of the parents’ stubbornness of thought, and, the mother understood, by experience, that so long as her son’s happy, then, it doesn’t matter, because, all parents want their young to be happy, and, this second time around, they made it!
and no, still NOT my photograph…
Life, the Obstacle Course 