Anhui woman left with huge medical bill after death of husband and son

Out of Cheng Shilian's loss, came tea. The 76-year-old has experienced the deaths of several family members, but keeping her hands in the soil of East China's Anhui province has helped her to cope.

"It is only when I am busy working in the field that I feel stronger," said Cheng, who grows green-tea seedlings in Niujiaochong village in Lu'an city's mountainous Huoshan county.

Nurturing her seedlings helps her grieve for the loss of her husband and their only son, gives her courage to care for a daughter-in-law with breast cancer and helps her grapple with her own loneliness.

"My difficulties are temporary, and I believe I can overcome them with my own hands," she said. "I can't stop moving on, or the grief and loneliness would kill me."

Cheng's son was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer in 2013, the same year she learned how to grow tea. He died the next year and Cheng's first farm, a 70-square-meter plot near her hilltop home, failed too.

Her son's year-long medical care left the family with 200,000 yuan ($30,860) of debt - money they borrowed from relatives and other villagers. Cheng needed away to repay them, so she turned once more to planting tea.

She asked for advice from agriculture technicians about how to improve her farming practices. She tripled the land she put under cultivation and met some success, earning 5,000 yuan in profit.

Then, last year, Cheng's daughter-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her only grandson, who works in Hefei, the provincial capital, helps the family with expenses, but his salary alone cannot repay the family's debts.

So Cheng decided to rent 2,700 sq m of land and work harder at growing tea seedlings. She also has more than 70 chestnut trees.

Her efforts earned her about 20,000 yuan last year, on top of her retirement pension of 1,800 yuan a month.

"Though not much, the turnover satisfied me," she said.

Before her misfortunes multiplied, Cheng thought she was a lucky woman. Though she dropped out of high school in 1961, she was one of the best-educated people in her village. In 1965, she became a village cadre responsible for women's welfare and taught in the village's only primary school from 1972 to 1993.

Cheng personally regards gender equality as an important symbol of civilized society. "Luckily, China has improved greatly in this aspect over the decades," she said.

In the 1980s, Cheng insisted on bringing her husband and son to live in her parents' home, since she was their only daughter and her husband's parents had died long before.

Her husband, an army veteran, worked in a local State-run cement plant until the late 1980s, when he was killed in an accident at work. Cheng's father also died that decade, followed by her mother in the 1990s.

After her misfortunes were reported by local media in March, Cheng's story aroused sympathy in many people. Some wanted to donate money, though she declined most of their offers.

She found it harder to reject the help of her former students, who have donated 40,000 yuan so far. This has helped her to reduce her debt to 100,000 yuan.

"Some of them visited me in my home recently. Most of them are in their 40s and 50s now," Cheng said.

"Seeing each other after all this time, we laughed, we cried, we said 'time flies', and we were all astonished by what we have experienced over the years."

zhulixin@chinadaily.com.cn