Story told by Liu Yan Transcribed by Jing Nuyaoyao

Wheeling Through the Europe

Story told by Liu Yan Transcribed by Jing Nuyaoyao

July 6,2009 should have been a joyous day for me.That day,I was going to graduate with a Japanese major from Tianjin Foreign Studies University.Unfortunately,that night,I was hit by a truck.

When my eyes opened,I found my mother full of tears begging the doctors to save my feeble life,while my father standing by her with a blue T-shirt soaked with nervous sweat.They were so eager to bring me back from the dead that they went up and down many times to the floor I was on,by the stairs,in the 12-floor hospital,rushing through the pa-per work—forgetting there was even an elevator.

Because of severe damage on my inner organs,I had to have surgery.My lungs,stomach,livers,and kidneys were repaired,and my spleen was removed. On seeing that damaged spleen carted out of the operation room by the nurse, my mother collapsed to floor and started weeping.

During my time in the hospital,I always felt so sleepy,and I could hear my mother’s whispering“My little girl, please hold on!”

In my eight months in ICU,there were 32 emergency notices from doctors.Notices were so frequent that the Doctor just put up a poster that read“Bed No.36 Needs Intensive Care”on the corridor notice board.

In those 8 months,the floor of ICU turned into my 50-year-old father’s bed. Those nights,he guarded my side without a break,and from time to time put his hand under my nose to confirm I was still breathing.One night,I woke up at midnight and found father still sitting beside my bed.I told him I wanted some water.It took him a while,struggling stand up with the help of the handrails of the hospital bed,since his knees were so inflamed after sleeping on the hard, freezing floor.Watching his trembling movements towards my water in the dim light,I could not help feeling his pain and sobbing.

After some time,I was allowed to have meals,but I did not have the appetite to enjoy the food.My hopeless future depressed me gradually.I had to sustain life with nutrition transfusions. At a height of 1.7 meters,my weight dropped to less than 40 kilos.My legs were thinner than my dad’s arms.Although I was like this,my parents never gave up.They jammed all my favorite jellies and chocolates into the cabinet beside my hospital bed.

Before my accident,my mother was a lawyer in Beijing.But now,she had to leave her job and concentrate on taking care of me.My father also chose to retire earlier than he planned so he could be by my side 24/7.

To spend the rest of my life in a wheelchairs was an abyss to me,who then was just 26 years old.The desperation I felt led me even to consider bidding farewell to this life.Gradually,I have gotten used to those harsh words like“disabled”and“paralyzed”as well as made up my mind to try my best to face the challenges of life—to those embarrassing details in daily life that could easily have dragged me down.For ex-ample,although my parents were really careful,after a while in a wheelchair,always having to wear adult diapers when I left home,pressure sores appeared on my hips.It was made worse because the sores had a hard time healing,due to my damaged spine and weak blood recycling functions.

There was a while where I hated to go out in the wheelchair and shut myself off from the world.Every time I found strangers’eyes while in the wheelchair, I would lower my head to avoid their annoyed concerns.The more reluctant I was in going outside,the more insisting my mother was to bring me out.She thought that only by accepting the harsh facts could I ever really embrace the hope of a future life.As time went by, my mother began to share with strangers why I was in a wheel chair.I finally began to accept the facts.

2012 was coming,which had been the third year for me in a wheelchair.

One day,I was sitting by the window with nothing to do,my mother suddenly said to me:“my little girl,are you still interested in traveling to Europe?How about we go,as a family,and explore before your father and I are too old.”I was astonished.To raise such an offer needed a lot of courage,both for me, who was trapped in a wheelchair,and for my parents,who were aging and had spent much of their life-savings keeping me alive.

Alas,in April,2012,together with the wheelchair,we boarded a plane for Europe.

In Belgium,father rented a car.I leaned on him,looking around excitedly. I had never seen such a changing sky:I felt like I could almost hear the drifting of the clouds.I took a deep breath of the strangely humid,but still fresh,air and I had never been so grateful for the functional parts of my body.

Father hoisted me down out of the car and into the wheelchair,and wheeled me around,strollingontheoldpebble streets.Sometimes on the bumpy roads, the wheels would get stuck and it was hard to roll forward,my parents had to lift it together and carry it with their hands.At that time,I imagined myself an ancient princess sitting in a bridal sedan,and the carriers were my parents who were accompanying me to enjoy the view,even when they were exhausted and out of breath.

At the Vatican museum,there was a spiral staircase.The slope was doable in thebeginning.However,thefurther down it went,the steeper and higher the stairs became.It was very challenging for father to bring me down the stairs. At the very moment when my father used up the last of his strength and the wheelchair was about to lose control,it was my mother’s leaping to pull the wheelchair back that saved me from hitting the ground.

Through the whole trip,I could not move forward one step without my parents. Furthermore,my wounded spine was too sensitive to the cold temperatures,and this was a problem that haunted them in their minds.At every stop,father would park the wheelchair in places full of sunshine,to soothe the coldness of my body.

In Oostende,a heavy shower hit while we were out enjoying the beautiful north Atlantic.Though I stayed in the car because of the harsh wind and rain,my whole body was freezing from head to toe because I had never been in such a cold environment,let alone for such long hours.Due to an insufficient supply of blood to the heart,I was nearly suffocated and unable to keep my eyes open.

Despite the bitter rain,father rushed to the nearest shop to buy chocolate for me.Withchocolatemeltinginmy mouth,I was embraced by my mother. She comforted me like a baby and gently exhaled her warm breath on my face. Gradually,I found the right pace of breathing.At that moment,it came to me:why not cherish everything I had now,when even breathing was as a blessing to me.

Along the journey,we walked around, sightseeing and resting in nearby hotels when we were tired.One night,father was about to trim my nails for me in the hotel.After preparing some hot water and feeling the temperature by hand,he gently put my feet into the water.After washing them,father put on his glasses and moved a stool to sit in front of me.He held my swelling feet in his arms and trimmed the nails with all the care in his heart.He even polished them afterwards.Watching his gray hair in the dim light,I felt bittersweet.My mother, beside us,was ironing our clothes quietly.Several times,she stopped to smile and watch us.In that moment,I suddenly felt that my pain was so tiny in such a big world.As long as we three were together,we were at home.

In July 2012,we finally had accomplished our journey,which surely seemed impossible to others.

With love,encouragement,and forgiveness to each other,we finished our 35,000 kilometers trip which covered 90 days,28 countries,and more than 60 cities.I was reborn by it—the trip carries with it,to me,the whole and miraculous transformation from being lost,to being found,and ultimately finding the enlightenment that is life.In order to record this“rebirth,”I began to blog our trip stories with the little finger of my right hand which was the only one I could still move.As time went by,I gained more and more interest in typing my story,and I found my confidence was regained.I gave myself a new name—“YIYI,”and used it to publish many articles,lyrics,and essays amongst online communities.The friends I made onlinecalledme“thebeautiful wheelchair traveller.”

At the beginning of 2015,my travel story,whose more than 200,000 characters all typed with my little finger went published.With this,I want to give all my gratitude to my parents,who have accompanied me through the most difficult time in my life.I know now I will not be fearful of the future,since we three are a mighty fortress of support.

(FromFamily,Vol.9 2015.Translation: Zhao Yan.Illustration:Yu Shuli,Liang Baigen)