Mommy, Don't Cry

Age 9: After more than a year of illness, the mother who loved and cherished her finally passed away, leaving her and her father behind to go to Heaven. Her warm home was now just a little girl, her father silently smoking late into the night, and her elderly grandmother. Age 12: Her father brought home a seemingly gentle, kind woman and a girl three years older than her, telling her they would be her new family. Her grandmother told her to be good and get along with her new mother, and not to make things difficult for her father. On the first day her father left on a business trip, that woman made it clear that she was nothing but an unwanted presence in the family. Whenever her father was away, she would scold and hit her. One day, the girl could no longer bear it and told her father. He had a huge argument with her new mother in their room. When she came out, her new mother glared at the girl viciously. From then on, she became invisible to her new mother and stepsister. They acted kind to her in front of her father, but she swallowed all her grievances, growing quieter and more withdrawn. Age 16: In the season when flowers bloom, she met him. He gave her sunshine and warmth, and she followed him without hesitation, leaving home and her father behind. Age 18: He was gone. He vanished without a word. She searched on foot for him everywhere they had once walked hand in hand. Her tears ran dry, her heart shattered… Age 19: She shed her childishness and found her strength. She carried plates, scavenged through garbage, and slept beneath overpasses and in parks, all to protect the baby he had left her. Age 24: She saw him again. He was high above her, with an elegant woman in designer clothes on his arm. She was just a worn-down, destitute woman, crouched in a corner washing dishes.