The Paper's reporter Ming Que
At ten o'clock in the morning, the second floor of the hotel was crowded.
Nie Heping stood in the middle of five tables, reading a string of familiar names, Peng Fengming, Zhou Qiong, Li Lin... Suddenly, someone was heard saying, "I like you guys, I like you the most..." Xin Li (pseudonym) walked in with one hand on crutches and her husband with the other.
On February 15, the Chinese New Year's Eve of the lunar calendar, 45 elderly people from the Huaihua Municipal Family Care and Mutual Aid Association (hereinafter referred to as the Huaihua Lost Independence Association) gathered together to eat a "heart-warming Chinese New Year's Eve meal" under the organization of President Nie Heping. They chatted, took pictures, sang songs, and the song resounded throughout the hotel.
45 elderly people, for various reasons, have lost their only child. For a long time, they "died" over and over in their lives, "died" and came back to life.
"The most frightening thing is the New Year's Holiday," Nie Heping said, saying that if they did not come to the "Chinese New Year's Eve dinner", they would cry at home while thinking about it.
This year is the fourth Chinese New Year's Eve meal of the Huaihua Lost Independence Association, named "Heart-warming Chinese New Year's Eve Rice". Earlier, the "Chinese New Year's Eve Meal" was organized by the losers, who liked to gather together to rap and laugh.
On February 15, the Chinese New Year's Eve of the lunar calendar, the group photo of the "heart-warming Chinese New Year's Eve meal" of the elderly who lost their independence in Huaihua City.
"Association of the Lost"
Nie Heping, 68, stood in the middle of the crowd, with a light makeup on his face and a light down jacket in rose red, looking much younger than usual.
When she was young, she had worked in government agencies and companies, and developed a habit of calmness; after retirement, she often sang and danced, traveled, and did crafts... Until before her son's accident, she was happy like a little swallow.
In September 2004, Nie Heping's 29-year-old son, Wang Jian, died in a hospital in Wuhan due to aplastic anemia. Before he fell ill, the family had prepared a marriage room for him.
Nie Heping pulled out the only photo of his son from home — his son smiling and sitting on the grass with his girlfriend's sister's child. "Meng Meng (the child in the photo) should be 20 years old, right?" She asked her husband Wang Zheng'an.
The only child certificate of Nie Heping and Wang Zheng'an.
When his son first left, Nie Heping often couldn't sleep, like the walking dead, and didn't communicate with the outside world much for three years. "They said that their son bought her clothes, where did their daughter take her to play, and what about her grandson... I felt bad when I heard it and didn't want to play with them. Nie Heping said.
For a while, the couple often had a cold war, "If you don't say anything, I will break out, I said you want to divorce and leave." In the early spring more than ten years later, Nie Heping talked about this past, full of tears, and she learned her husband's tone and said: "I am definitely going to argue with you, but this marriage is impossible to leave." Before that, she had seen many families who had lost their independence and had divorced, and she thought that her husband also wanted to divorce her.
Nie Heping's family spare medicine.
In April 2006, Wang Zheng'an had gallstone surgery. Watching him being pushed into the operating room, Nie Heping felt very scared, and after waiting for a long three hours, her husband came out of the operating room, and Nie Heping was determined to live a good life with him.
She returned to the university of the elderly and participated in various performance activities. Until 2012, she rehearsed a program at the University for the Elderly, preparing to perform at a nursing home in Huaihua City, and later heard that the nursing home was unwilling to accept the elderly who had lost their independence, and Nie Heping also refused to perform in the nursing home.
During that time, the couple was worried about their old age, and Zhou Qiong, who worked in the hospital, met Wang Zheng'an several times and felt that he was in a very poor state, "walking unsteadily, as if a little demented." In order to get out of the dilemma of "losing independence", Nie Heping decided to find more people who lost independence, encourage each other, and hug each other to keep warm.
In 2013, Nie Heping went to the Family Planning Commission of Hecheng District of Huaihua City in hopes of finding more losers, and they called each other "people with the same destiny.". The staff of the Family Planning Commission told her that she could not give the phone until the consent of the other party. Later, through friends, the Internet, and the Family Planning Commission, Nie Heping found more and more "people with the same fate", who from time to time gathered for dinner, sang, danced, and went on outings...
Nie Heping still remembers that when he first met the "same person", many people hugged her and cried, they poured out comfort to each other and found the courage to live.
On February 9, the staff of the Social Organization Management Section of the Huaihua Civil Affairs Bureau introduced to the surging news that in November 2014, the Huaihua Municipal Family Care and Mutual Aid Association for Families Who Lost Independence was approved to be established, with Nie Heping as the president of the association and 50 or 60 members.
"You can't always be immersed in pain, you must come out, and if you can't walk out for three years, you have to intervene." Nie Heping said.
In 2015, Beijing Shangshan Charity Foundation tried for the first time to organize a "heart-warming Chinese New Year's Eve meal" in Beijing for the elderly who have lost their independence. Ms. Xin Xin, the head of the foundation, said that after that time, feeling that the parents who lost their independence had this demand, they began to raise funds and invite various cities to participate, and this year 29 cities, including Huaihua City, organized "heart-warming Chinese New Year's Eve meals".
"The main thing is to give them a channel to dredge." Xin Xin said.
"I'm happy to see you"
This was the first time Zhang Zanxin brought his wife to eat the "heart-warming Chinese New Year's Eve meal", and after everyone had finished eating, he used a large bag to pack the rest of the dishes and took them back to the Fourth People's Hospital of Huaihua City, the former Huaihua Psychiatric Hospital.
Six years ago, Xin Li was admitted to the hospital and has never been out since.
Zhang Zanxin takes care of his wife every day, helping her cook, wash, bathe... Hot water in the kettle 24 hours a day. "You told her to take it off, and she wouldn't; you told her to check, she didn't know..." A few days ago, Xin Li pulled her stool in her pants again and sat down on the pillow.
"We used to have a very good relationship, we were a model couple in the factory, and now we have lost all our original love." Zhang Zanxin glanced at his wife.
Xin Li looked indifferent, shook the hand of the person who came and said, "I am happy to see you." ”
"Do you know him?" Zhang Zanxin asked his wife.
"I know, he's the older brother, and I like him the best." Cien Lee said.
Zhang Zanxin, a 67-year-old native of Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu Province, graduated from university in 1976 and was assigned to the 4507 factory in Huaihua City, Hunan Province, as an engineer, responsible for mold design. The 4507 factory has no equipment, and Zhang Zanxin goes to Xinli's factory every week to make products, so that the two have a good feeling.
Zhang Zanxin said that Xin Li was known as the Third Princess at that time, "her old man (father) was the director of the factory at that time, and many people wanted to pursue her."
In the spring of 1980, the two married, and in 1981, a son Zhang Bo was born. After a few years, the factory began to decline, and their monthly wages added up to less than a thousand yuan, "she is 450 yuan a month, I am 380 yuan a month, and I still have to provide for my son to study." ”
In 2000, the factory closed, and a few years later, they received a pension of more than 1,000 yuan per person per month. In 2004, his son, who was working in Jiangsu, suddenly fell ill, "and it was found to be hydrocephalus, which contained algal bacteria, and there was no medicine in China to treat." Zhang Zanxin pulled out all kinds of inspection slips and invoices in his pocket.
They traveled to Wuxi, Nanjing, Shanghai and other places, treated for three years, borrowed more than one million yuan, and finally left in 2006. "It was a heart-wrenching pain, watching him leave day by day, but you can't get it back." Zhang Zanxin said no one could understand what they had endured, including his siblings.
For more than a decade, the debt of more than a million yuan has been pressing down on them like a mountain, they buy the cheapest side dishes, eat other people's leftover meals, and have not bought clothes for more than ten years... Zhang Zanxin said: "There are still 200,000 yuan of debt, relying on the retirement wages of two people, and it will take about 10 years to pay off." ”
In 2005, the second year of her son's hospitalization, Something was wrong with Sinley, she was hysterical in her hospital room. "I can't be coaxed, I can't scold, I can't be scolded, I can't beat." Zhang Zanxin also found that his wife could not remember anything, and cursed every day on the hospital balcony, and even the son in the hospital bed could not help but say, "Mom, don't scold, Dad's patience is two hours." ”
Zhang Zanxin knew that his wife was sick, but he did not have the energy to take care of her, at that time he was busy with his son's illness, borrowing money from relatives and friends everywhere, in fact, he could not borrow money.
After the son left, the couple returned to Huaihua City, Xin Li did not sleep all night, she turned to her son's room, looked at the son's photo, was confused during the day, went to someone else's house to find her son... Zhang Zanxin took his wife to the hospital, checked out that it was cerebral infarction, so repeatedly did not see better, Xin Li's brother could not see it, suggested that Zhang Zanxin take his sister to the psychiatric hospital, that was in the spring of 2012, the Fourth People's Hospital of Huaihua City was found out, Xin Li suffered from cerebral organic mental disorder.
On the afternoon of February 8, a nurse came to measure blood pressure and asked Zhang Zanxin, "Has she had a recent wrestling?" ”
"There's wrestling."
"Does she know who you are?"
On the hospital bed, Xin Li immediately said, "He is my man." ”
"Do you know where this is?"
"Here are the four hospitals." Cien Li waved her hand and said loudly.
Zhang Zanxin said that many people who have lost their independence, after three or five years of accidents in their children, have come out; when they enter the stage of physical helplessness, they return to their thoughts of their sons, "because the adopted son is old"!
On February 9, the staff of the Charity Federation of Huaihua Civil Affairs Bureau visited Zhang Zanxin Xinli and his wife at the Fourth People's Hospital of Huaihua City.
"Love is not lonely"
Since the end of 2015, the Charity Federation of the Huaihua Civil Affairs Bureau has launched the "Love Is Not Lonely" project - they pair people in need, let them recognize mothers and children, recognize sisters; celebrate the birthdays of the orphans every year; and help the sick orphans to do hospice care.
In March 2017, Nie Heping celebrated his 68th birthday, and she sang a song "Husband And Husband I Love You" with a rose in her hand, which made many people at the scene cry.
In March 2017, Nie Heping sang "Husband Husband I Love You" at the collective birthday party.
"In the future, he and I will only be able to live together." Nie Heping said that there are also many people who can not "rely on each other", such as Peng Fengming, who lost her husband and son.
In 2001, after the death of her husband, Peng Fengming and her son depended on each other. In 2004, the 27-year-old son married and subsequently gave birth to a daughter, Zhang Min (pseudonym). In 2011, his son was killed in a car accident on his way home from a grave sweep.
Peng Fengming lived in a three-bedroom and one-hall staircase room, which was a unit house demolition subsidy more than ten years ago, and Peng Fengming spent more than 40,000 yuan to buy it. The house was cleaned up, and as soon as he entered the house, Peng Fengming poured two glasses of water, pulled out various candies from the drawer, stuffed one into the reporter's hand - "eat candy", and then sat down next to the fire box.
"My life was too bitter, when I was young, I was sent to the countryside, my husband got cancer after being laid off, and then my son had a car accident and left, and my granddaughter is now sick... I've never had a tear. Peng Fengming, 69, cried, her wrinkled face shaking. She quickly dried her tears, saying that she had a cheerful personality and played very crazy - "Warm Heart Chinese New Year's Eve Rice" chorus, Peng Fengming's voice could be clearly heard in the harmony.
Peng Fengming and the paired dry daughter WeChat group chat.
Many people with the same fate feel that Peng Fengming is very lucky to have a granddaughter, at least "no severed son without a grandchild". But Peng Fengming felt that her pain would not be understood by others, and the loss of independence affected three generations of their family: the daughter-in-law took her granddaughter alone, helped people clean up on the construction site, and had no time to accompany the children; after the granddaughter was hit, she did not speak to her for two years, and her clothes were tilted; she herself was old and sick, and she fell to the ground alone, and there was no one who could help her.
In the first month of 2015, Peng Fengming fell ill and was hospitalized, and the person at the next bed asked her, why is no one in your family coming to see you? She said her family had gone to work. "No children will be looked down upon, and some people in the community will think that I am unlucky and see me turn around and leave." Peng Fengming said.
Peng Fengming's daughter-in-law, Yao Luofeng, remembers that not long after her husband's death, her daughter began to make a big fuss, and then became more and more silent, asking her what to answer, and then simply not speaking, just nodding and shaking her head.
At first, Peng Fengming wanted to take the child, but Yao Luofeng did not agree, the two had a quarrel, and then Yao Luofeng took the child to move out of her mother-in-law's house and rented a roof with a monthly rent of more than 300 yuan. Afterwards, Yao Luofeng recalled that she may have ignored her daughter's feelings at that time, "after all, she was brought up by her grandmother from childhood."
After that, for a while, Zhang Min often said, "I can't stand it, I can't stand it..." Yao Luofeng didn't know what her daughter couldn't stand, she felt that they all came this way.
When Zhang Min was six years old, the school teacher suggested that Yao Luofeng take her daughter to the hospital for examination, and after doing the brain CT, the doctor said that there was no problem and asked her to accompany the child more. Yao Luofeng said that she had to work alone and take care of her daughter, and sometimes she couldn't get busy.
"When I take her out to play, she thinks every day that I take her out to play, and if I don't go out, she's not happy; when I come back from buying something, she thinks about me coming back every day, and if she doesn't buy it, she's not happy." Yao Luofeng said that sometimes she really doesn't know how to take her daughter.
Yao Luofeng took her daughter to the hospital more than a dozen times, began to see pediatrics, and later came to see the psychiatric department, she thought her daughter was autistic, the examination said no, and then went to the psychiatric hospital, the doctor told her that her daughter had a mental illness, let her play with her more.
"I don't have that much time with her, and I really can't do it perfectly." Yao Luofeng said that sometimes when she had time, she would go home and cook lunch for her daughter; when she was not free, her mother-in-law Peng Fengming came to help her daughter cook.
On February 9, the reporter saw this 12-year-old girl, thin and weak. As soon as she saw the reporter approaching, she hunched her back and shrugged her shoulders, quickly entered the room, and then buried her head in the pillow, refusing to say a word.
The plight of the lost
At this year's "Heart-warming Chinese New Year's Eve Meal", the person responsible for directing the singing was Li Lin, vice president of the Huaihua Lost Independence Association.
As the Lost Independence Association approached the five-year election, Nie Heping felt that she was old and wanted to find a suitable person to take over her class. She said that this time Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, she wanted Li Lin to be the host, but Li Lin said that she could not speak Mandarin well.
Li Lin, 63, has been a soldier in the north for four years and now takes care of his wife Zheng Xiaoping, who suffers from breast cancer, at home every day. Li Lin cooks, washes, sweeps the floor every day... Everything is done in great detail, and the home is well organized. Before his son's accident, he was a boss in the fruit wholesale business, earning hundreds of thousands of yuan a year.
Li Lin used to work at the Huaihua Supply and Marketing Company, when his wife Zheng Xiaoping was in the Huaihua Fruit Company. In 1992, the two were laid off one after another and began to do wholesale business of agricultural and sideline products. At that time, Li Lin went to all parts of the country to purchase goods, and for five or six months a year, he ran outside, and he transported the purchased goods back to Huaihua City by train or car, and then asked his wife to wholesale these goods to the counties below.
In the spring of 2012, the 29-year-old son was on his way back to Work in Guangxi when his car flipped into a large puddle and his head was squashed and he died on the spot.
A few months later, the couple resumed their business, "we don't know what to do without doing business." Zheng Xiaoping said that in early 2013, she felt that her body was not right, "the breasts are very painful, like bone-piercing." At that time, it was almost the New Year, she ran to the hospital for examination, the doctor did not tell her the condition, only let her be hospitalized immediately, Zheng Xiaoping thought of being hospitalized again after the end of the year, the doctor said, "You still want the New Year?" ”
Zheng Xiaoping did not believe it, a person secretly ran home, after the fifteenth day of the first month back to the hospital, she found that her right arm could not be lifted. Li Lin saw that his wife's examination report said CA, "that is the meaning of cancer."
All the relatives and friends were frightened, and they contacted their brother who was studying medicine, went to the best hospital in Guangzhou, and quickly had a mastectomy. "All removed, the breasts and lymph are removed, and if they are not removed, they will spread." Zheng Xiaoping unbuttoned her button as she spoke, revealing her flat chest on the right side, and the knife scar on it was clearly visible.
Every day to take medicine, to go to the review three times a year, Zheng Xiaoping said that she has not yet passed the dangerous period, a year medical expenses of more than 100,000 yuan. "You see, the spread has come here," she said, touching a hard block on her arm, now that today has passed, I don't know tomorrow.
Nie Heping said that after Zheng Xiaoping had a mastectomy, she wanted to do IVF, when she was in her fifties, "We all advised her not to do (IVF) and asked her whether she wanted someone or death." In 2015, Zheng Xiaoping finally gave up doing test tubes.
In August 2007, the state stipulated that couples who did not have children after the death of their only child or legally adopted a child would be paid a monthly support payment of not less than 100 yuan per person. In 2013, the National Health and Family Planning Commission and other five departments jointly issued the "Notice on Further Improving the Support work of families with special difficulties in family planning", which stipulates that from 2014, the special support standards for the disabled and deceased families with only children who have reached the age of 49 will be raised to 270 yuan (disability) and 340 yuan (death) per person per month in urban areas, and 150 yuan (disability) and 170 yuan (death) per person per month in rural areas, and a dynamic growth mechanism will be established. Since then, the Huaihua Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission has raised the national standard to 800 yuan per person per month.
Li Lin said that he did not want to lose his independence support fund before, thinking that it was "dead people's money, holding a cold heart." But the wife spent more than a million yuan on the operation, and the bank's money could not be withdrawn, and they later reported the number of orphans.
After his son passed away, Li Lin was reluctant to talk about his son, he did not want outsiders to know, and even relatives and friends were reluctant to say. "We shouldn't be immersed in the pain ahead, we should think about what comes after us, and the biggest question now is what to do when we're old." Li Lin said he hopes to have a nursing home where the orphans can be brought together and let them take care of each other.
According to the Ministry of Health's "2010 China Health Statistics Yearbook", the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' "China Aging Development Report (2013)" and other relevant statistics, there are at least 1 million families without independence in China, and the number continues to increase at 76,000 per year.
In the past 12 years, Han Shengxue, deputy director of the Huaihua Family Planning Commission, has visited more than 100 families across the country, and he wrote about his visits into the "Survey of Families With Lost Independence in China". In the spring of 2017, this 260,000-word reportage was officially published by the Mass Publishing House, which attracted widespread attention from the society.
In Han Shengxue's view, the biggest dilemma encountered by the orphaned is "one is to treat the disease, and the other is to provide for the elderly." At present, his Huaihua City is investigating the problem of old-age care, trying to buy nursing insurance for the orphans, in addition, the major hospitals in Huaihua City have also opened a green channel for the orphans who hold "support certificates".
The elderly who have lost their independence can enter the hospital with the "support certificate" and can take the green channel.
Compared with economic subsidies, Han Shengxue believes that life care and spiritual comfort are more missing for those who have lost their independence. In a previous interview with The Paper, Zhai Zhenwu, a professor at Chinese University and president of the Chinese Society, also believed that while the state continues to increase the amount of support funds, it should also pay more attention to the spiritual needs of those who have lost their independence.
To be born or not to be born?
Zhang Zaixuan, deputy secretary of the party group of the Huaihua Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission, introduced that there are about 2,000 people who have lost their independence in Huaihua City, which does not include the families who have lost their independence and rehabilitated.
Nie Heping said that once the families who have lost their independence are pregnant with a test tube or adopt a child, they will withdraw from their Huaihua Lost Independence Association.
In the spring of 2014, the 48-year-old Dahai joined the group of orphans and became one of the initiators of the Huaihua Independence Association. When my son first left, he and his wife stayed at home all day, "I told her to go out shopping, she told me to go out to buy something, and once, I tricked her down, she walked to the side of the road and suddenly burst into tears." ”
After the interruption of communication with the outside world, they began to communicate on the Internet, mainly through QQ groups. At first, the sea was afraid of being deceived, and then began to accept slowly, "after all, everyone's encounter is the same."
One day, The Sea saw someone in a group who said that it was IVF, and he immediately asked and joined the group that did IVF. But the group was full of women, and after knowing the gender of the sea, they kicked the sea out, and before that, the sea pulled his wife into the "IVF group".
It was April 2014, and Wu Juhua, the wife of the sea, said that after knowing that she could do IVF, she finally felt that life had hope, and began to go out for a run and exercise every day; whenever she had time, she went out to play and adjust her mentality; soaked her feet with salt water and adjusted her physical state.
They then went to Changsha, Guangzhou, Shandong, Shanghai, Beijing and other hospitals for IVF, and lived in guest houses near the hospital, sometimes for a month or two. "Every time I go to the hospital, I get progesterone every three to five times a day, and my ass is swollen." The sea used a wet towel to apply to his wife every day, and then he beat it again after a little better, so that after nearly a year of adjustment, his wife Wu Juhua finally became pregnant.
Wu Juhua said that she was very happy to know that she was pregnant, but it was not until the birth of the child that she really put her mind at ease.
During the year of IVF, they spent more than seven hundred thousand yuan, spent all their savings, and sold their only house. In August 2015, after the birth of his daughter Lele, Dahai withdrew from the Huaihua Independence Association, but he still did not dare to tell his parents about the fact that his son had passed away, "only saying that he had a second child, and the eldest son went to the United States to study."
The room was a bit chaotic, there were a lot of toys on the edge of the sofa, and Lele, who was more than two years old, jumped up and down on the sofa, pointed to the corner of the wall and said: Bugs, bugs... This is the house of the sister of the sea, in 2014, after they sold the house, they rented the house for a period of time, and in 2016 moved into the sister's house.
"If you don't have a child, your life is very difficult; if you have a child, your life is very hard." Wu Juhua said that although she is now in a very hard body and has various postpartum sequelae, she feels very relieved in her heart, "Finally someone called me mother again."
On February 19, Shandong's mother Di Ma, helped Guo Min, a new adoptive mother, launched a water drop fundraiser online. After Guo Min lost her child, she gave birth to twins at the age of 58, and now her two children are 7 years old, and her husband died of illness half a month ago, which made the original poor family worse, and now the family lives on a monthly pension of more than 2,000 yuan.
The government encourages families who have lost their independence to help themselves through reproduction or adoption, and once the self-help is successful, they will no longer belong to the families who have lost their independence and will no longer be able to enjoy the care of the support policy for the loss of independence. Many families are caught up in the predicament of life because of regeneration.
According to a previous report by The Paper, Yang Li, a deputy to the National People's Congress, had suggested that special support funds be issued as appropriate for "orphans" over the age of 40. In this regard, the National Health and Family Planning Commission replied in August 2017: This involves the adjustment of the national family planning family special support system, and it is still necessary to conduct comprehensive, in-depth and systematic research and widely solicit opinions, and the next step will be to study and explore this issue.
After the death of their son in 2016, Yang Yang and her husband Lan Jun of Anjiang Town, Huaihua City, wanted to adopt a child, and they were almost deceived. In the spring of 2017, 45-year-old Yang Yang naturally became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter of more than 6 kilograms.
Although she was less than 50 years old, half of Yang Yang's hair was gray, and the pain of losing her son made her look older than her peers. When she goes out with her daughter, she is often asked: Is this your granddaughter? She always answered "yes yes" and "whatever they think, I knew it was my daughter anyway," she said.
The child brought joy to Yang Yang and her husband Lan Jun again.
There are also some orphan mothers over the age of sixty who risk giving birth to a "second child". One person who lost his independence said that having children again at the age of 60 is actually a big risk.
Another person who has lost his independence said in the "regeneration and raising group" that it is difficult to choose how to choose such a thing, and if you want a child, in the process of raising a child, there will be a lot of happiness, and there will be energy, money, and other difficulties; but do not have children, and when you are older, you will be more lonely and helpless.
Han Shengxue did a survey of "leftover men and leftover women", and he found that many young people's concepts changed, "They asked me, why do you want to get married and have children?" I told them that population security is the most basic security, that the development of a country depends on people, and that the family is responsible for itself and the country. But Han Sheng theory said that he could not convince young people that this generation has different ideas from the generation of the independents.
This issue is edited by Li Xiaojun