The paths life has us, walk on, translated…
My eldest brother wasn’t related to me by blood, but, he’d become, a member of the family earlier than I had. My eldest brother and his two younger sisters are the neighbors of my home in China, his birthmother died shortly after his youngest sister was born, his father who sold the gold jewelries married a younger woman back home; afterwards, the stepmother started abusing the first wife’s children, and, spent all the money her husband sent home on herself and her friends, didn’t take care of the needs of the children. And, although my mother had, often tried and helped the children out, but, if this stepmother found out, the children would get beaten up hard, and, my eldest, in order to protect his younger siblings, had gotten physically abused a lot.
Then, the war came, Hong Kong fell, and, the family no longer received any money from their father, the stepmother planned to sell the three children off to someplace distant. And my eldest brother knew, that if they all got sold of today, there would be a slimmest change that he will, EVER find his younger siblings again; so he’d, took his younger siblings, came to my mother, begged her to take them in. My family has a small handicraft company for exports, we weren’t well-to-do, and besides, there were, already, three girls in the family, and we’d, lived on quite hard during the war, but my mother pitied the three children, allowed them to stay with us temporarily, and to share everything we had with them in the hard times, however long it will last us. And just like that, my family turned into a foster home for the three, and we were, blessed, to pass through the war without any troubles. My eldest brother’s youngest sister was the same age as my eldest sister, my mother told the three of us girls to note them as eldest brother, second eldest brother, and sister Xia, made them into, a part of, our family.
As the war was finished, I was born, and on that same year, my father passed. Then, Hong Kong was, more stabilized, my mother asked the carriers of goods, to take my eldest brother to his father, to learn the craft in jewelry making. And the following year, she’d sent my second eldest brother by the same ways and means. But their father refused to take Sister Xia, reason for she was, too young, he couldn’t look after her. Until the various movements in China began, my mother felt that this wasn’t a good place for us to stay, then, she’d filed the applications for Sister Xia to go to Hong Kong to be with her father and older brothers, and told her father, that his youngest daughter is a grown woman, and can take care of herself, as well as, others too. Counting it, Sister Xia had been with my family for eighteen years. And later, my mother escaped to China using her business, and several years later, my second eldest sister and I too, escaped there. By this time, my eldest became a technician in piecing together the jewelries, as he got married, my eldest sister-in-law treated my mother like she were her mother-in-law, and, called me youngest sister-in-law. And every time we met, my eldest sister-in-law would always, prepare the tasty treats for me.
The years flew by, my older sisters got married one by one, and I came to Taiwan for my education, to work, then to marry, leaving my mother to live alone in Hong Kong, and I only made it back to Hong Kong to visit during the summers and winters. My eldest brother’s children grew up and studied abroad, and, my eldest sister-in-law died in a car wreck, my eldest brother didn’t want to move in with his own children, lived in our old home, and during this time, he’d, accompanied my mother through part of her life.
Over twenty years ago, I’d, sent my mother’s ashes back to Hong Kong to place, my eldest, second eldest brother were both there for the funeral processions (Sister Xia already passed away), they’d, eulogized my mother for her kindness, for taking them in. Last night my second eldest sister called to tell me, that my eldest brother passed, and because of the outbreaks of MERS-CoV, I couldn’t make it to Hong Kong for his funeral, and so I’d, written this article, in memory of him.
And so, this, is how life is hard and trying for these individuals, and, how in times of hardship, kindness had, sprouted up, how this family was kind enough, to take in these children unrelated to them, and raised them as their own, and the children who were adopted by this family knew that the family was kind, and reciprocated too.