Our reporter Zhou Ying
I haven't had time to enjoy my mother's peaceful embrace.
A cardboard box and a few rags were born, most of them were thrown away in crying, and abandoned in hospitals, streets, and corners of alleys.
Due to birth defects, suffering took away the blooming season of these orphans and disabled children.
Some of them are blind and cannot see a trace of light; some are physically and mentally disabled, and it takes several years to barely learn the basic life skills of walking, dressing, and brushing their teeth; some suffer from severe autism. He hit the wall with his head, hurting himself without realizing it.
Li Lan (left), director of the Social Welfare Center of Maoming City, Guangdong, communicates with children in the hospital (photographed on April 27).
Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Deng Hua
In the Social Welfare Center of Maoming City, Guangdong Province, there are 282 orphans in the hospital, each with its own stories and scars.
Li Lan is the light in children's lives. When they heard her voice, the children raised their smiles and coquettishly yelled "Mother Dean" to "hug" and hold "hands".
Since entering the orphanage at the age of 19, she vowed to build a hospital for the children and give them "a clean bed" and "a space for fun" so that they can live with dignity and dignity.
Twenty-five years later, she used her flower season to bring sunshine and warmth to the children.
About 4,000 children received treatment and rehabilitation training through her hands. After more than 2,000 children recovered, they were successfully adopted and returned to the "family".
Here, the children saw the light shining through the cracks in life.
Tough
In the summer of 1996, Li Lan, who returned to school to apply for a letter of recommendation for employment, happened to meet the dean of Maoming City Social Welfare Institute who came to the health school to find a doctor. Talking about the difficulty of not recruiting doctors and children in the hospital, the old dean couldn’t help it. Cried.
Li Lan was moved with compassion, and decided to check it out first.
The sight in front of her made her uncomfortable: a few bungalows were dilapidated, the playground was overgrown with weeds, and in a low, dimly lit room, four or five children crowded on a bed, looking at her with wide eyes.
Suddenly, a four- or five-year-old child came over and hugged her leg, and her milky voice called "Sister".
That night, there was no sleep.
In the end, Li Lan decided to stay.
"The children of other people's families are loved by their fathers and mothers. The same is a child, they should be cared about? Since no one wants to do it, then I will do it until someone comes, and then go back to be a doctor.
That year, when I heard that Li Lan gave up his job opportunity at the city hospital and wanted to go to the orphanage, his smoking father slammed the pipe to the ground, "If you go, don't come back."
The mother cried and persuaded her not to go, saying that the work in the orphanage was dirty and tiring, and it was really not suitable for a little girl.
After working for a long time, marrying is a difficult problem.
It's not that Li Lan has never struggled.
At that time, she was only 19 years old and had just graduated from the Maoming Health School. Because of her good character and learning, she had already got the opportunity to work in the city hospital.
What awaits her is a decent job and a bright future.
But the desperate and expectant eyes of the children in the orphanage still held her heart.
If you don't experience it yourself, you don't know how difficult it is to work in the orphanage.
It is said to be a doctor, but due to the shortage of manpower, doctors, nurses, and rehabilitators are often shouldered by the shoulders.
On average, a staff member looks after more than a dozen disabled children.
From 6 o'clock in the morning to more than 10 o'clock in the evening, the child needs to change diapers, feed, and urinate every few hours.
"Often one day, my arms are so sore that I can’t lift them up. Every day is a repetitive job. Sometimes I cry while doing it, and I cry myself when the child cries. I’m tired of falling on the bed, thinking I don’t want to get up again tomorrow. But when the children cried the next day, they had to start a new day of work."
But Li Lan persisted, "Take care of a child and observe the process of life growth. Seeing that under her careful care, the child grows up and gets better day by day, she will feel that she is amazing. Things that others can't do, I can do what others can’t eat, I can eat, and I will be proud of myself.”
The last thing she didn't want to face was the departure of the child.
Almost all children here are sick and more vulnerable.
The medical and sanitary conditions in the hospital were poor, and death was something that had to be faced.
At noon on the Mid-Autumn Festival of 1998, a 12-year-old girl took Li Lan’s hand and said, “Sister, I want to drink a bottle of Wahaha.” At that time, the welfare institute was performing in the city, and Li Lan didn’t take the little girl’s words too seriously. "When you get better, my sister will buy it for you again".
But when Li Lan finished the performance and returned to the courtyard, she learned that the little girl had sudden breathing difficulties and had left.
This brought Li Lan regret and guilt that could never be remedied, and it also made her understand the responsibility of this job.
"A difference in thought can save or lose a person. I am afraid that if I don't care, I will lose a child forever."
Since then, she has determined to stay and made three promises for the children in her heart: one is to build a hospital and recruit doctors and nurses to better protect their right to survival; the other is to build a day for them. A playground drenched in the rain; the third is to let each of them have a small bed of their own.
Difficult, sweet
"Ah, ah, look..." In the classroom, he stubbornly held his two small hands tightly and stretched them out on his chest.
Along the midline of his arm, he moved forward with difficulty, staggering and lifting his footsteps.
After walking less than three steps, he fell down, he got up with difficulty, stabilized, and straightened his clasped hands, and stepped forward.
When he finally reached Li Lan, he opened his arms, laughed and threw himself into the arms of the "dean's mother", as if he had completed a terrific challenge.
Walking independently is indeed not easy for Qiangqiang.
He is just over 1 meter tall, but he is actually 9 years old.
At the age of 4, he was sent to an orphanage due to severe cerebral palsy.
When he first came, he would not turn over or drink milk, biting the bottle in a hurry, let alone walking.
The orphanage spent 6 years teaching him to turn over, lift his legs, and take a toothbrush. One action was broken down into a dozen steps and practiced repeatedly.
Slowly, Qiangqiang finally stood up by himself and took a few steps.
"In this situation, if you don't practice for a period of time, the skills you learn may degenerate and you have to learn again." Li Lan told reporters.
Of the 282 children currently in the orphanage, 99% are seriously ill and severely disabled. More than 170 children have cerebral palsy, more than 80 have autism, and many have multiple disabilities.
No matter how old this group of children is and how they look, most of their minds stay at 0-3 years old.
"Don't look at them smiling at you. Survival is a matter of exhaustion for them." In the embroidery class, we saw several older girls, each holding An old embroidered picture with yellow hair is piercing through the needle.
Li Lan said that the time for these children to complete a work is in years.
Some of these embroidery pictures have been embroidered for several years.
Some children have weak grasping ability and rely on tenacious perseverance and exhaust all their energy to complete a simple needle-piercing movement.
In her view, teaching children to dress, brush their teeth, walk, and go to the toilet so that they can basically take care of themselves in life is to give them the most basic dignity for survival.
According to the actual situation of the children, it is better to teach them music, painting, sports, and embroidery, so that they can do something in their free time and feel a little value of themselves.
After staying with these children for a long time, Li Lan seems to have become a "philosopher".
She often wonders, in the face of fragile and impermanent lives, should healthy and intelligent people cherish the happiness they have now and do what they can to help those who are in a more disadvantaged position?
In the orphanage for 25 years, she has done all the dirty work, and also experienced life and death. Li Lan is no longer the little girl who secretly wiped her tears at night.
Now she has become the backbone of the courtyard.
Of the 159 staff in the hospital, more than 90% are women, and many of them are "post-90s."
In the face of this special group of children, the young people's mood will fluctuate after all, and they will hide in the room and cry.
"Young people in their 20s, which is not the baby of the family. Some people are not married, but they are already working as mothers. Not feeling distressed is a lie. But in this special industry, we are the last refuge for these children. "For young people who are really upset in their hearts, Li Lan will take them to vent in the mental room, or talk around the playground.
The sincerity to the children will also be rewarded. This is what makes Li Lan gratified.
The children have low intelligence, but who treats him well is like a mirror in their hearts.
As soon as they saw Li Lan appear at the door of the classroom, the children "exploded" the pot, and the smiles on their faces suddenly burst.
The lively children would shout "Mother Dean"; the shy ones would lower their heads and beckon her in a naive way.
Chunchun who suffers from severe autism, the first word she learned is "get off work".
When he was 10 years old, he was sent to the orphanage by the police from the police station. His face was bloodstained and scarred, and he was very manic.
Li Lan took him from the police, hugged him in his arms, comforted him, and allowed him to tear his clothes and scratch his skin.
In the end, Chunchun calmed down in her arms.
Since then, Li Lan has become his most trusted person.
No matter how late she gets off work, Chunchun has to wait until she finishes working overtime and says hello before going to bed.
When Li Lan, who had finished working overtime, saw him, he would greet him with the phrase "It's off work." Over time, Chunchun also learned this word.
More than a decade ago, Li Lan read a sentence: If you are over 40 years old and still have tears in your eyes, then you are happy.
Now 45-year-old Li Lan, only after carefully savoring this sentence can he understand its meaning.
"When you have a kind heart, love work, love life, and be dependent on others, you will understand what it means to follow your heart, and you will live with tears."
Reluctant, hopeful
In Guangdong, Maoming is not an economically developed area, but today's Maoming City Social Welfare Institute has undergone earth-shaking changes.
Several five or six-storey buildings, half-arched embrace a playground the size of a football field.
The playground is no longer overgrown with weeds, the ground has been hardened with cement, the flower beds are beautifully trimmed, and the playground equipment is all available.
There is a first-level general hospital in the orphanage, with full-time doctors and nurses, and a special education school.
The classrooms are modern and beautifully decorated, equipped with computers and other multimedia facilities; the music classroom has pianos, guitars, erhu and other musical instruments; the rehabilitation department is equipped with special acupuncture, physiotherapy, and health care equipment.
Children not only have their own small beds, but they can also share a suite and a home with several people.
After working for so many years, what makes Li Lan most happy is the healthy growth of the child and the "return" to the family.
She said that family care is always the most meticulous.
The best destination for children in an orphanage is to return to the family and society after reaching the rehabilitation standards.
In the past 25 years, almost 4,000 children have been treated and cared for by her.
Among them, more than 2,000 children have been adopted by members of the public and families through legal channels after reaching the rehabilitation standards.
It is impossible not to give up.
During Li Lan's breastfeeding period, a premature and very low-weight twin girl who had drank her milk, when she was put into adoption, held her thigh and shouted "Mother", cried and cried, and did not want to leave.
"They cried, and I shed tears. After all, they were all children raised by themselves. But for their long-term development, I must let go."
Li Lan’s words on the lips are: “Good policies have room for me to give full play to value.” She said that in this industry for 25 years, she has witnessed the improvement of my country’s social welfare security system.
At present, the protection of the orphans and disabled children by the party and the government is comprehensive.
The basic living allowance for each orphan and disabled child is more than 1,800 yuan per month, and the child’s medical insurance is also paid by the government.
In the event of a major illness, the "Tomorrow Plan" for the rehabilitation of disabled orphans by the Ministry of Civil Affairs can help children.
With the further promotion of prenatal and postnatal care, premarital examinations, and the popularization of gender equality, fewer and fewer children are abandoned to orphanages.
"In the past, we had to accept more than 200 children a year. Last year, we only accepted 6. This is a welcome change."
In 2018, Li Lan was elected as a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress, and she felt that the responsibility was even heavier.
"Not only should we pay attention to the development of hundreds of children in a welfare institution, but also the development of the entire child welfare organization industry. Through research and performance of duties, we should do our best to protect the rights and interests of children, especially the orphans."
Li Lan said that what she hopes most is that every child is healthy and smart, and they are the treasures of their parents.
(The text is strong and pure is a pseudonym)