Read the above article about the emotional narrative of his child with cerebral palsy from birth to death.

Hell is behind you and heaven is in front of you

Editor’s note: Cheng Hao is gone. He is the one who answered the question “Where do you think you are awesome? Why do you think so” on Zhihu.com? The young man "The Count is in the Castle" uses plain language with a sense of humor to describe his unfortunate fate, as well as his optimistic attitude of loving reading and loving life. Attached to the article are two works by Cheng Hao, one is a famous work and the other is a final work.

When Cheng Hao was 6 months old, his family found that he could not move much while lying on the bed and could not stand up, so they took him to Shihezi Hospital for examination. At that time, the hospital said he had cerebral palsy.

When he was 8 months old, Cheng Hao remained motionless. But he spoke early. When Cheng Hao was almost 1 year old, his mother Li Zhe took him to Beijing and Tianjin for medical treatment. The hospital in Beijing gave him a test result: cerebral palsy, but there was a question mark behind it. The test result given by the hospital in Tianjin: muscle weakness.

I have been seeing doctors since I was born and seeking medical treatment everywhere. When Cheng Hao was 6 years old, his mother taught him Pinyin and bought him a primary school dictionary. At that time, Cheng Hao loved to ask questions and talk. He knew all the characters by himself, so his mother bought him storybooks marked with pinyin. His mother said: "As soon as I come back and put him on the sofa, he will start reading." Later, his mother bought Cheng Hao a computer. "He was eight or nine years old at the time. Every day when I left for work, I would put him next to the bed and let him play on the computer. I would block him with a quilt to prevent him from falling under the bed. When he was tired, he would send me text messages saying, "Mom, hurry up." When I came back, I was tired. I hurried back to help him lie down or change his position."

The first time Cheng Hao was critically ill was when he was 11 years old, and the critical illness notice stated that he had heart failure. After that, I became critically ill basically twice a year. Colds can cause infection in his lungs and induce heart failure. His mother said: "There were several times when he looked like he was dying, but he looked at you as if he was fighting for your life, and kept shouting mom, mom... What can you do? You can only try your best. There is a way to save him.”

Cheng Hao’s chat content is different for each age group. When he was a child, he would talk to his mother about Guo Jingming and Han Han. Now, mother and son talk less about idols and more about the movies Cheng Hao downloaded and articles he wrote. His mother joked with him: "Hey, post it as soon as you finish writing it, otherwise you won't be able to post it one day. It's so uncomfortable to hold it in and not be able to post it, and you can't even close your eyes." Life and death have become common topics between mothers and children. Joke theme. Sometimes his mother would tease him after he was rescued: "Look, God didn't accept you and sent you back, so you just live well."

Every time Cheng Hao was critically ill, Even his mother would think he could survive it. She said: "I can't say what kind of happiness Cheng Hao brings me. Others think I'm tired, but I don't feel it myself. I just feel very happy. When I go home every day, I can chat with him, joke with him, and tease him. When he hears When the door rings, I will ask him. If he comes back late, he will ask, why did you come back so late? "Cheng Hao gave it to himself. A detailed plan was made, and 100,000 words must be read every day. Read in the morning and write in the afternoon. Because he couldn't sit up, Cheng Hao could only use the mouse to type on the soft keyboard.

At noon on August 21, 2013, Cheng Hao seemed to be in good condition and was waiting to be discharged from the hospital the next day. He asked his mother to buy food and asked her to help him get the e-book and set it up. Li Zhe went there for 20 minutes, always running. As soon as he entered the ward, Cheng Hao looked like he was asleep, with his eyes closed. My hand is still on the e-book, but the e-book has become a screensaver.

"I said son, you fell asleep less than 20 minutes after I left. What happened? I put the food on the table and shook him, but he didn't respond. I went out to call the doctor He shouted, but it was useless to save him."

Cheng Hao's life ended suddenly at the age of 20. Before his death, he once said: "I will donate my body, including my cornea. My soul will open up another world for you. I will let my eyes continue to illuminate this beautiful world instead of me."

"Happiness is when you wake up and the sunshine outside the window is still bright.

”

Why do I think I’m awesome

I haven’t walked on the ground since I was born in 1993. The doctor once judged that I would not live to be 5 years old. However, just a few minutes ago, I still I was using Taobao to choose a 20th birthday gift for myself.

When my peers were still in kindergarten, I had already been to hospitals in big cities such as Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai. When I was doing rubber band jumping, I was experiencing medical equipment worth millions moving around my body. I had taken medicine that even pigs would not take, I had needles with electric current, I practiced miraculous qigong, and I even lived in the whole country. It was an orphanage for abandoned children. In those lonely days, I was surrounded by children with intellectual disabilities. At the loneliest time, I could only sing alone in the corridor...

For 20 years, my mother was alone. I know how many critical illness notices the doctor gave me. She nailed a thick stack of paper to the wall with a 10-centimeter long nail, saying that it was very memorable when I was a child. , I endured physical pain; when I grew up, I experienced inner suffering. Sometimes, I couldn’t help but want to ask: Why did God choose me to endure all this? But no one could give me an answer. All I can say is that misfortune, like luck, needs to be borne by someone.

It’s not about justice!

In recent years, my health has been deteriorating and I have been hospitalized. The names are also increasing day by day, such as heart failure, kidney stones, hydronephrosis, cholecystitis, pneumonia, bronchitis, lung infection, etc. I have thought about donating all my organs to people who need them more in the future. , or used for medical research. But at present, apart from my cornea and brain, the organs that can help normal people work healthily are really very limited.

My biggest regret is that. Of course, the reason for regret is not the bullshit reason of "self-improvement", but the regret that I can't make friends, meet beautiful girls, and fall in love like a normal person. But as the crazy Nietzsche said: " Whatever cannot destroy me will make me strong. "It is precisely because I don't go to school that I have more free time to read. What makes me proud is that I once maintained a reading volume of 100,000 words a day. Although I don't know why I want to read, but I think it is An expression of serious life.

I am not an inspirational model like Ms. Zhang Haidi, nor a literary master like Mr. Shi Tiesheng. I am just an ordinary "professional patient", but I want to say that I am truly awesome. Not those deeds that can be boasted casually, but those ordinary people who still keep smiling in difficult situations.

Hell is behind you

I woke up unexpectedly this morning. I had a splitting headache. The first time I took my temperature was 36.8°C. Judging from my years of experience in getting sick, this temperature must be incorrect. Sure enough, the second time I took a different thermometer and it was 37.4°C, an increase of 0.6°C, indicating a low fever. Thinking back to last night, when I woke up suddenly, it felt like a huge stone was pressing on my chest. Every time I took a breath, it was like thousands of steel needles shuttled between the lungs. I really fulfilled the sentence: breathing is a luxury.

A few days ago, someone wrote me a letter. She asked me, what is the point of living alone?

I didn't reply to her. question. In the past, I would have told her: "Live for nothing, just live for the sake of living." "This is Yu Hua's point of view in the book "Alive". However, not everyone can regard "living" as a great cause like me. What's more, even I now question this view. As described in the book, relatives will die, friends will betray, dreams will be shattered, and beliefs will collapse. It is unreliable to place the hope of "living" on any of them. However, after all, life is not a speck of dust and cannot be random. Floating. It is a grain of sand, struggling in the turbulent waves, burning in the angry fire. It is powerless, but it is not inactive. We are driven forward with confusion and numbness.

This feels like you asking me why I write.

I’ll roll up my sleeves and show you the bruises on my arms that won’t go away from long hours of writing. I may not be able to become a writer, and I may not be able to write works that satisfy me, but I must persist in the act of writing because I don’t want the scars on my body to become meaningless. Looking at these bruises, I can think of the past days and nights, and the past self. If you give up writing, it will be a denial of everything you have done before.

Perhaps, people’s persistence is often not because they believe in the future, but because they don’t want to betray the past.

Maybe we cannot understand the meaning of "living", but we have paid too much for "living"; maybe we cannot realize our dreams, but we have shed too many tears for our dreams. All we can do is go further on this road and never look back. Heaven may not be in front of you, but hell must be behind you.

(This article was published on August 16, 2013. Five days later, Cheng Hao passed away.)