Successfully, passing through the trials of her own life, translated…
My older sister had been loved dearly by my father since she was younger, she’d fallen in love for a short while when she was twenty, she’d let go of her smaller family of four in northern Taiwan, married to a family of over a dozen in southern Taiwan; back then, the traditions are different from the north to the south, the women needed to wait until the men finished eating, then, they can eat, and the women also needed to take turns, cooking for the entire family, and you can imagine the trials she’d weathered through.
As I went to visit her in southern Taiwan, I saw how my older sister, who’d never done any work around the house before, in a very short time, became a very capable daughter-in-law, I was so very surprised to see this change in her. Later on, one day, she’d told me, that she can, NEVER go back to her in-law’s anymore, after I’d pressed on, she’d finally told me, that she was, divorced, and because she didn’t want anything to do with the family, she’d just, taken the kids with her.
Back then, I’d just gotten out of the armed services, and, carried on the over million dollars of debts my parents had, accumulated, and having my sister home with us, added on to my pressures in life; being divorced now, she’d worked hard all day long, and, as I was already having difficulties, making the ends meet myself, I can only, hand her a bag of change I’d saved up from before from my selling stuff on the side of the roads to help her out.
My father became really intolerant of my older sister’s divorce and coming back home to live, believed, that she’d, shamed our family; and, my sister felt taken, and on the weekends, she’d always, gone out with a group of female coworkers like herself, divorced, and, they’d, drowned out their sorrows with alcohol. Back then, she was only in her early twenties, I’d told her, there’s NO shame in divorce, that if she wanted to marry again, she’d needed to, think twice on the matter, and, I’d encouraged her, to fall in love again too. And, after a long while, my older sister finally, opened her heart up to a brand new love again.
In order to help resolve the issues my father had, my older sister started looking after him, cooked the meals, tidied up the house, took my father to his doctor’s appointments, accompanied him to plant his produces up on the mountains, and, her actions slowly, melt away that frozen mountain that was between them, and now, my father and older sister are getting along very well, it’s just, that they’d, argued every now and then.
After age forty, my older sister was laid off, but gladly, her kids were, old enough, she’d started selling the vegetables downstairs from home, bought the produce from the farmers herself, shipped them home to sell, after the trials of these past years, she’s no longer, a spoiled woman, but, a happy cougar, with her own new love, as well as a running career too.
So, this woman had her share of trials in life, and, through it all, she’d never gotten beaten down by her own fate, she’d worked hard, persisted, raised her children up, and it’s this sort of a stamina, that’s gotten her where she is now, she’d found a brand new love, and, is very well off living her brand new life after she divorced her ex-husband.
Life, the Obstacle Course 