As our parents grew old, they needed their two daughters to support them.
My younger sister planned to move abroad with her foreign husband, while I lived with my taxi-driver husband in a small county town in China, in a two-bedroom apartment.
Mom had no money to her name, so she chose me to support her. Dad, meanwhile, took all the family assets and went with my sister.
We were hardly well-off, but we still gave Mom the master bedroom in our two-bedroom apartment. Even so, she was unhappy, constantly saying that she got no enjoyment out of living with me.
Every night, she video-called my sister, envying their exciting life abroad. Every other word was a complaint that I wasn't taking good care of her.
But I was already middle-aged, and besides caring for Mom, I had to look after my daughter, who was about to take the college entrance exam, and my husband, who suffered from cervical spondylosis. And that was without even mentioning my elderly parents-in-law.
One problem after another left me gasping for breath, yet Mom still insisted on going abroad to celebrate my sister's birthday.
I couldn't take it anymore and had a huge fight with her. The argument gave Mom a cerebral hemorrhage.
Lying in her hospital bed, she was still calling out for my sister. She stared at me with wide eyes and said regretfully, “I should never have chosen an incompetent daughter like you to support me!”
Heartbroken, I fainted. When I opened my eyes again, I was back ten years earlier, on the very day my parents were assigning us the task of caring for them.
This time, Mom spoke up first: “I want my younger daughter to support me. It's my turn to enjoy the good life!”
