"I know we will have a wonderful life together,
as our love will walk through eternity."
This love story is difficult, but it's real.
Rao Pingru was born to an educated family in 1922.
Mao Meitang was three years younger than Rao, sweet and innocent.
He met her when he was eleven years old.
Pingru showed his toys to Meitang at their first meeting
The families had a very good relationship.
So they met for a second time.
Gradually, Pingru grew tall and handsome, while Meitang blossomed into a beautiful woman.
At 26, Pingru graduated from the country’s top military academy.
When he returned, he met Meitang for the third time.
And they fell in love.
“I saw, through an open window of the house, a girl holding a mirror and applying lipstick. Was it love at first sight? Maybe…I was very much impressed. Later, we were engaged when her father put a ring with my name on her finger.”
Meitang was holding a mirror and applying lipstick
They were married in 1948.
Wedding photo
“Before I met her,
I feared nothing, not even death.
After the marriage, however,
I had to take our future seriously. "
The couple enjoyed the moon in a shabby house
Like any couple, happiness mixed with bickering in their daily lives.
“We had a fight. But only one. I can’t remember it clearly, I just know I was so angry that I crashed a red thermos on a table. She cried loudly while turning her face to the wall. We didn’t talk for one hour. I came to hug her and she turned to me, giggling in my arms.”
A fight with Meitang
“If I remarried, I couldn’t find a woman better than her. There are some people who would leave their beloved ones during the hardship. But Meitang, even in the toughest times, never left me.”
The couple were forced apart amid social turmoil in 1958, when Pingru was sent for reeducation through labor at a camp in Anhui Province.
For 22 years, Pingru was allowed to visit his family only once a year.
To raise their five kids and support the family, Meitang had to work, carrying heavy bags on the construction site.
Rao Pingru was in a reeducation-through-labor camp
Meitang was working on the construction site of Shanghai Natural History Museum
Pingru received fish oil from Meitang during his sickness
Meitang saved half a cube of sugar from their kids and sent it to Pingru.
Pingru refused to eat the sugar and placed it beneath his pillow.
Now, whenever he walks to the Shanghai Natural History Museum, Pingru pauses, as he knows he is stepping on the stones that Meitang carried before.
“Her body was not strong, but her will was. She was a good wife and a good mother, a great woman with China’s traditional virtues,” Pingru recalled.
In 1979, Pingru finally returned home, only to find out that Meitang had been diagnosed with diabetes and nephrosis.
Meitang began to lose her memory.
So Pingru quit his job and looked after her.
“Get a knife for me! I need to cut the quilt smaller!”
Meitang urges Pingru “do not eat unhealthily” even when she was heavily ill
One day, Meitang said she wanted to have some of her favorite desserts.
Pingru brought them back after 40 minutes’ ride in the chilly winter.
But when he arrived home, Meitang couldn’t remember asking for the treats.
All of a sudden, despair struck Pingru down.
He fell to the ground and wailed.
In 2008, Meitang died with a final tear hanging in her eyes
After Meitang died, Pingru placed her ashes in his bedroom, waiting for the day they could be buried together.
Meitang left the world, but their love story lives on.
[object Object]
At 87, Pingru started painting to document those precious moments with his wife, compiling an 18-volume memoir.
He still remembers Meitang loved the song, “Rose and Mary.”
So he started playing this song on the piano at 90, as if Meitang were listening.
Rao Pingru was singing the love song ‘Rose and Mary’ to Meitang at the park
For what is love?
He shared what he wrote on one of his paintings:
"Love is Patient.
Love is kind.
...
It bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends."
