She didn’t receive any educational assistance since she lived in a poor region that lacks the basic means of providing herself with education or even eradicate illiteracy and enabling herself to read and write.  Living in a remote village in Sichuan province, her family was poor and she had three other sisters. Forty years ago, her father married her off to a man that she didn’t even know. She moved to the new home with her husband and started a new era of struggle, her husband wasn’t educated as well and he could barely afford the basic necessities. She was a full-time mother and her hands and legs were tethered looking after three children and she didn’t have skills to get out and find a job. When her eldest son was in high school, the news came like a stroke. Her husband died in a car accident leaving her alone, broken and desperate.

She realized that she has to take the responsibility as a bread winner, she didn’t think of finding a new partner and abandoning their children but to get out and try all means possible to get a job that allows her to support her three children. She decided to sit by the sidewalks and sell snacks .however, the situation was beyond her imagination, she came home crying after she sold nothing on the first day but she didn’t give up. She believed that the darkest hour is that before the dawn and that the darkest nights produce the brightest stars. She tried the second day and she was comforted because she could sell something, the business has got better day by day and now she can support her children, she felt relived.

Two years later, her youngest daughter suffered from a rare disease that took her mother into a different stage of suffering, she struggled a lot to treat her daughter and support the two sons that were still in college. She didn’t not lose hope and eventually her daughter was cured and her two sons completed their college. Now, her eldest son is a successful surgeon while the second son is business man and her daughter married someone that she loves.

Note : I heard this story while I was traveling in Sichuan province         

(Opinions of the writer in this blog don't represent those of China Daily.)