The Path I Walked (Part 3)

(Minghui.org) Ms. Li Li was a native of Heilongjiang Province. She had a difficult life, losing her mother to an unknown illness in 1992 and her brother to a brain tumor in 1994. She got married in 1981 and was a victim of domestic violence through most of her marriage. Her husband had extramarital affairs, eventually divorced her in 1996, and soon married the widow of her late brother.

Despite the hardships and heartbreaks, Ms. Li held to Falun Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and even her ex-husband protected her after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began the persecution of Falun Dafa in 1999. A TV reporter, a friend of his, intended to interview him and have him blame Falun Dafa for breaking up his marriage with Ms. Li. He firmly turned down his friend's request for an interview. While Ms. Li was being detained for her faith, he kept her Falun Dafa books in a safe place. After she was released but forced to live away from home to avoid further arrests, he took good care of their son.

Ms. Li later died as a result of the persecution. This 10-part series was her own account of her story.

***

Although I experienced misery and unhappiness, I remained cheerful, and was kind to those that mistreated me.

(Continued from Part 2)

Achieving Greater Potential

The normal college entrance examination system was reinstated in China in 1976. Thus, I was in the last class of the Workers, Peasants and Soldiers college students who entered college through a recommendation.

To continue teaching at my university, I had to attain additional credentials. Thus, I decided to take some post graduate courses. I went to Heilongjiang University to look for a college friend who worked there, but ran into Lu who graduated one year earlier than I did, and who also majored in philosophy. He worked in the library at Heilongjiang University. He was thrilled to see me, and told me that he had been looking for me. Through a mutual friend, he asked me to be his girlfriend.

Finding Support and Happiness

Being dumped twice before due to my poor health, I had already discarded the hope for a romantic relationship. I believed that marriage was simply a necessary step in the process of one’s life. I knew that Lu was good academically, and worked very hard in college. I was fond of him because of his diligence, as I looked for a man with good potential. I was willing to support him to achieve his goals, because I believed that a happy marriage was established through hard work. For these reasons, I agreed to start our relationship.

He was thrilled that I accepted him, and then began to pour out his affection for me in dozens of love letters with verses and poems. He used beautiful words, and his intense love finally won my heart—I did not expect that anyone would love me so passionately. That gave me hope. My heart that had been frozen for years began to thaw, and I even started to plan for our future life together.

Although I appeared strong, there was always an imperceptible, fragile side of me—the desire for protection. Since childhood, I felt that I had many unsolvable mysteries. The incompetence caused by bad health made me long for support and protection from someone who was strong. Father was that person in my childhood, but as I grew up and left my childhood home, he could no longer provide that protection. My acquaintance with Lu strengthened my weakness, as I believed that he was the one whom I could lean on in the future.

Learning to Put up With a Bad Temper

Gradually I found out that he had a very bad temper, and sometimes he acted strangely. If things did not go his way, he could lose control of his temper easily, and even got into fights with me. It was hard to believe that he was the same person who wrote those love letters to me. I could not see myself living with someone like him, so I decided that instead of suffering in the future, I might as well call it off now. But he refused to stop our relationship, and even forced me to register with him to prevent me from leaving him.

Only after we received our marriage certificate did he agree to meet my parents for the first time. My parents respected my decision, although they withheld their opinion. Nonetheless, they enthusiastically welcomed their son-in-law and treated him well.

I was pregnant soon after we got married. We had no place to live back then, so we slept on the table in the reference room of his library.

One day he invited his college classmate to our place for dinner. We boiled salted eggs in a kerosene stove and made some side dishes. During the meal, I found that the egg Lu gave to his classmate was smelly. I motioned to him to exchange his own good one with that of his classmate but he did not do anything, so I gave mine to his classmate.

After his classmate left, we went back to the reference room to get ready to sleep. However, as soon as we entered the room, he slapped me twice in the face and pushed me to the ground. I was five months pregnant at that point. Stunned by his sudden rage, I cried. Nobody had ever hit me before, including my parents. I was saddened, and then mad, but I did not tell anyone because I knew it was my fault to have married such a person.

One year later, we were allocated a small apartment, and my son was born. The arrival of my son gave me new hope, and it helped me to forget my past sorrows. I named him "Lu Lu," and my father named him "Lu Yifan". Lu Lu always looked for me during the day, and would not let anyone hold him, even his father. When sleeping, he put his hands on my hands or face, as if he was afraid of losing me.

Lu began to prepare for law school exams. He worked around the clock and did nothing at home, so I took Lu Lu to work, and did all the household chores by myself. Meanwhile Lu’s bad temper worsened. He not only quarreled with me, but also with my siblings, and even with my mother.

Mother was sick, but she came to see us because she missed us. Yet Lu quarreled with mother during her short stay, so she left earlier than planned as she could not stand his bad temper. That was the last straw—I could not stand the harm he did to my family. I put down my son and wanted to walk away. However, just as I was leaving, Lu Lu burst into tears. He seemed to have grown up all of a sudden. His eyes seemed to plead for me not to go. I wiped away his tears and picked him up. At this moment, I realized that for my son, I could not leave no matter how miserable I was.

Moving to Changchun

Lu was admitted to the postgraduate program at the Law School of Jilin University in Changchun City in 1984. I stayed in Harbin with my son. After Lu graduated two years later, he stayed at Jilin University to teach, so I transferred to the Marxist-Leninist Department of Jilin University. My son started preschool at the university. After moving into the apartment allotted to us, we bought our first color TV, and even began to save some money. I finally tasted some sweetness in my life.

Changchun was a beautiful medium-sized city. It was neat and clean, and the streets were lined up with trees. Many universities, various research institutions, the famous Changchun Film Studio, and the First Automobile Factory all had their main centers there. Jilin University was located in the center of the city. The university offered various seminars on a wide range of topics, and their library also had a large collection of books. I attended as many seminars as I could, and often spent my time in the library to fully utilize the resources to expand my knowledge.

Finding Selfishness When Experiencing Bad Health

The university auditorium regularly sponsored different activities, such as movies, qigong classes, reports events, dance parties, but my poor health prevented me from participating in many of them. In Lu's words, “Your body parts seem to be reluctant to stick together." He was right, I had health issues on a daily basis.

A colleague of mine, who was also prone to illnesses, introduced me to qigong. I subscribed to many qigong magazines and joined qigong classes. After studying and practicing different kinds of qigong for a long time, however, I found that none of them could answer the questions that I had since childhood. Furthermore, my health became worse instead of better. I told myself that if qigong could not answer my questions, it could not cure my physical illnesses, so I gave it up.

My relationship with Lu was still very tense. He was distressed when he had no money, but when he finally had extra money, he started to drink with friends, and displayed many bad habits. He went to dance parties, and was drunk all the time. He quarreled with me even more because nothing about me seemed pleasing to his eyes.

A few years after teaching in Jilin University, Lu decided to pursue a PhD degree, and was admitted by Wuhan University Law School's doctoral program in 1990. My son and I were left behind once again.

Enduring Suffering

After he moved out, I often thought about our relationship and concluded that during the years of our marriage, my emotions had gone through a transition in the following phases: hope, sadness, frustration, disappointment, and despair. We were the opposite of each other. I did not care about money, but he was obsessed with it. I liked being quiet, but he was loud. Our differences, the countless quarrels, coupled with my physical pain, made me feel like I was treading on a road with a dead end. I was distressed, desperate, and in pain. I often walked back and forth on a street alone, not knowing where I was going, or what day it was. I even forgot holidays. I did not understand why I could not be accepted by this society.

I thought about death, and maybe it was the best way to resolve all of my troubles and alleviate my pain. But then I realized that I could not die. My parents and siblings would have been devastated. I must endure the suffering, as I could not hurt my family.

Through painful experiences, I finally understood the reason why living with Lu was so intolerable—I had always attempted to shape him into a person that I wanted all these years. Therefore, I ended up being disappointed and miserable when he refused to follow my arrangement. I realized that I had been selfish, as everyone was an independent individual. With that revelation, I learned that I must not rely on anyone but myself!

(To be continued)