Teary (Part two of a Single Tear for two Hearts)

This story was conceived long before we even thought about the names of Jeremiah and Jubilee. A baby girl left to be abandoned by the plantation fields of a small village in the remote province of southern China. On that fateful day a kind hearted and childless widow of many years from the countryside walked by after tending her herd by the rice fields and heard the sound of a tiny defenseless baby fighting desperately with fainted cries. She quickly dashed in to the thick plantation field bushes and tracked down the location of the cry and before too long, she found her. What an adorable little face the widow thought, two big round brown eyes with thick lashes and dimples on the side of the cheeks. She must not be just a few weeks old as she was still doing sucking motions with her lips. Startled by the wrinkles on her face, the baby girl cries even louder and seemingly grew more hysterical.

This baby girl was severly dehydrated as her lips were all cracked and smeared with dry blood. She was tied up in urine-soaked blankets and scabs of dried mucus growing across her eyes. A cute but darken muddy button nose, she let out a big snotty sneeze. Without a second to lose, the elderly kind widow grab the baby girl and headed straight back to her village. That first night, the baby girl developed a high fever and coughed her way in to nightfall. She eventually fell asleep just when the sun was rising. She woke up by noon and the elderly woman fed her some light porridge as she waited for the doctor's arrival to examine the child. After a 40 mile travel in to the inlands to reach the village, the doctor finally arrived.

By this time, the little baby was already unconscious and had slipped in to a comatose state. One look at the tiny baby girl, the doctor recommended for the baby girl to be transported to a more adequate environment in order to stay alive. According to the experienced doctor's thorough examination and speculation, the baby girl was left abadoned for at least 2 days and even part of her toe was injured due to perhaps an attack from a small animal or insect. It's critical that the baby might lose her life if treatment was not administered immediately. Without another moments's delay, the doctor took the baby girl along with him and off they traveled back to the city.

A month had passed and still no word from the doctor. Everyday the widow walked the same path as the day she found her, hoping to relive the moment of finding her again. She remembered the very first glimpse of the baby girl as if a mother's first glance at her own baby right after birth. It's a motherly instinct and almost a second nature for her to love that baby eventhough they were together for only a day. Everyday after tending her fields, the widow went to the temple to light an incense for the baby girl hoping that she would live and see her again. The other villagers saw this act of kindness and decides to join in with her everyday by the temple. Everyday, they went to the temple and burnt incense hoping for the little girl to live.

Month after month passed by and soon the revolving season changed one after another like the great Yellow river. Six years had passed and one day the doctor re-appeared at the remote village and carrying with him was a bightly similing little girl. The villagers saw the doctor and somehow recognized the little girl. She must have been the little baby girl that the widow had rescued, they thought. The distinguished doctor asked around for the widow hoping to find her and to tell her the little girl was fine after years of battling with congenital heart illness. Finally the doctor saw a familiar face and stop to ask a passer where the widow had moved to. He put the little girl down and immediately one can notice that she was walking with a limp suffered from injuries of those fateful days. The villagers took a quick glance and shook his head uttering "too late too late...."

The widow passed away a year ago said a gentlemen. He took them to her grave and they both paid their respects. The doctor then told the little girl in a most gentle way, "this is the lady that saved your life." By the tombstone there was an inscription that says, "A happiest and also saddest mother for one day".

There are many stories of babies being abandoned especially baby girls in China. They have been abadoned for many different reasons and sometimes it's just simply because they are girls. Traditionally in the Chinese culture, females have always been looked upon as the inferior race. Girls are thought to be ones who will one day leave home and become a part of her husband's family therefore leaving the parents to care for themselves during old age. Boys on the other hand are put on a different pedestal. They are the strong ones who can help tend the fields, earn a living and be the ultimate bread winner. Another issue is the one-child policy that China adopted in 1979 in an attempt to control population. These two factors have contributed to the many abadoned child stories. The beginning of the story about the widow and the baby girl is all too familiar but the ending of it, in reality, is echoed with unheard cries that set like the sun and never find itself to rise again the next morn. Many of the baby girls, unlike the story told here, did lose their lives because of parental abandonment.

Jeremiah and Jubilee are names that we have given to our future adopted daughters. We may not know where these two girls are now but surely we will find them.