The Household COO

I received this tale of a remarkable love story through email and decided that I just had to post about it.  We all know, since I came out of the closet, that I’m such a sucker for these stories.  However, this is a change from the usual Hollywood romance scene - it is the real McCoy.  I hope it serves as a source of inspiration in a society that is now too quick to file for a divorce and discredit the whole sanctity of marriage. 

An incredible love story has come out of China recently and managed to touch the world.

It is a story of a man and an older woman who ran off to live and love each other in peace for over half a century.

The 70-year-old Chinese man who hand-carved over 6,000 stairs up a mountain for his 80-year-old wife has passed away in the cave which has been the couple’s home for the last 50 years.

Over 50 years ago, Liu Guojiang a 19 year-old boy, fell in love with a 29 year-old widowed mother named Xu Chaoqin.

In a twist worthy of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, friends and relatives criticized the relationship because of the age difference and the fact that Xu already had children.

At that time, it was unacceptable and immoral for a young man to love an older woman.. To avoid the market gossip and the scorn of their communities, the couple decided to elope and lived in a cave in Jiangjin County in Southern ChongQing Municipality.

In the beginning, life was harsh as hey had nothing, no electricity or even food. They had to eat grass and roots they found in the mountain, and Liu made a kerosene lamp that they used to light up their lives.

Xu felt that she had tied Liu down and repeatedly asked him, ‘Are you regretful? Liu always replied, ‘As long as we are industrious, life will improve.’

In the second year of living in the mountain, Liu began and continued for over 50 years, to hand-carve the steps so that his wife could get down the mountain easily.

Half a century later in 2001, a group of adventurers were exploring the forest and were surprised to find the elderly couple and the over 6,000 hand-carved steps. Liu MingSheng, one of their seven children said, ‘My parents loved each other so much, they have lived in seclusion for over 50 years and never been apart a single day. He hand carved more than 6,000 steps over the years for my mother’s convenience, although she doesn’t go down the mountain that much.’

The couple had lived in peace for over 50 years until last week. Liu, now 72 years, returned from his daily farm work and collapsed. Xu sat and prayed with her husband as he passed away in her arms. So in love with Xu, was Liu, that no one was able to release the grip he had on his wife’s hand even after he had passed away.

‘You promised me you’ll take care of me, you’ll always be with me until the day I died, now you left before me, how am I going to live without you?’

Xu spent days softly repeating this sentence and touching her husband’s black coffin with tears rolling down her cheeks.

In 2006, their story became one of the top 10 love stories from China, collected by the Chinese Women Weekly. The local government has decided to preserve the love ladder and the place they lived as a museum, so this love story can live forever.

Here’s the link to the news story.

What can I say?  I’m a sucker for romances.  Yeah, I’ll admit it - I enjoy a nice romantic comedy, even if I used to be a closet romantic.  In the past I would have rather hang by my thumbs and let vultures feed off me than admit that I really wanted to watch that new romantic comedy that just hit the big screens.  Rather than suggest to watch a romantic comedy when friends would ask what movie to watch, I would rent the video or buy the VCD/DVD to watch the movie in secret.

So when did I finally come out into the open and actually admit to myself that I’m a bigger sucker for this stuff than I would normally have admitted?  When I caught myself wearing a silly grin at the end of watching “27 Dresses“.

Although the title didn’t really inspire me, I was keen to watch it because it starred Katherine Heigl, the gorgeous blond from Grey’s Anatomy - yeah, I watch that one, too, so shoot me.  James Marsden (Cyclops from “The X-Men”) seems to be doing a lot of these romantic flicks of late as he was in “Enchanted” (yep, I watched that one, too, so I guess it pretty much confirms my status of “hopeless romantic”, no?).  Needless to say, I enjoyed the movie so thoroughly that I watched it twice and have filed away the DVD as something to watch again in future!

Good grief, I think I shall go hide myself in the closet.  Strangely, being branded as a sci-fi geek was never quite as embarassing as this.

Here are a few other favourites on my list of romantic comedies and chick flicks that I highly recommend and wouldn’t mind watching again:

• While You Were Sleeping (an oldie but a goodie)
• Star Dust
• Music and Lyrics
• Kate and Leopold
• Just Like Heaven

Sad to say, I don’t know who wrote this. It’s one of those beautiful pieces of writing that gets passed along through email that I happened to save. While cleaning out my hard drive, I came across it. I felt that the words captured here are too precious to keep to myself, so I’m posting this out.

I’ve known too many couples who were perfect for each other but failed in their relationships because they left everything up to chance. They failed to make that choice. So here it is…

When we meet the right person to love when we’re at the right place at the right time. That’s chance. When you meet someone you you’re attracted to, that’s not a choice. That’s chance. Being caught up in a moment (and there’s a lot of couples who get together because of this) is not a choice. That’s also a chance.

The difference is what happens afterward. When will you take that infatuation, that crush, that mind-blowing attraction to the next level? That’s when all sanity goes back, you sit down and contemplate whether you want to make this into a concrete relationship or just a fling.

If you decide to love a person, even with his faults, that’s not a chance. That’s choice. When you choose to be with a person, no matter what, that’s choice. Even if you know there are many people out there who are more attractive, smarter, and richer than your mate, and yet, you decide to love your mate just the same, that’s choice.

Infatuation, crushes, attraction comes to us by chance. But true love that lasts is truly a choice. A choice that we make.

Regarding soulmates, there’s a beautiful movie quote that I believe is so true about this: “Fate brings you together, but it’s still up to you to make it happen.”

I do believe that soulmates do exist. That there is truly someone made for you. But it’s still up to you to make the choice if you’re going to do something about it or not. We may meet our soulmates by chance, but loving and staying with our soulmate is still a choice we have to make.