How big a heart? 28 years and counting
Print Edition
They have become brothers. A caring man and a crippled cobbler who is no longer just another forgotten soul on the streets of Songjiang.
Zhu Yonglin, 55, has a promise he’s kept for almost three decades and intends to honor until the day he dies.
On a winter’s night 28 years ago, Zhu, then a Songjiang auxiliary policeman, was on patrol when he was asked to lend a helping hand to Yuan Xiaoshun, then 36, who was disabled and mending shoes by the roadside for a living.
“I was shocked when I saw him hunched over a small bench fixing shoes,” Zhu recalled. “We talked, and he told me his legs were paralyzed by polio since childhood.”
Zhu helped Yuan pack up his tools and escorted him home. His experience that night changed his life. Today Zhu works in the Yexie Town Social Security Bureau in Songjiang District, where he is in charge of registering low-income families.
During the past 28 years, Zhu has arisen early every morning so he can pick up Yuan, who lives in Yanjing Village. Zhu drives him to the local market and helps him set up his shoe-repair stall. In the evening, he picks Yuan up and takes him home.
Zhu visits Yuan at home every other day. He does housework and odd jobs, like changing spent light bulbs, repairing a malfunctioning toilet, airing quilts and paying bills. He has even helped redesign the house to facilitate Yuan’s limited mobility.
Part of everyday life
What some might consider a heavy responsibility, Zhu takes in his stride.
“It’s not burden for me at all,” he said. “He needs my help and I can help. That’s it. It doesn’t take much of my time. It’s just become part of my everyday life.”
Zhu helped Yuan acquire a telephone in the 1990s, when waiting lists were long. He wanted Yuan to be able to reach him quickly in case of an emergency.
In more recent times, Zhu bought a cell phone for Yuan and stuck his number by Yuan’s bedside. “He can call me any time,” Zhu said.
Yuan, now 64, suffered a heart attack one midnight. He phoned Zhu, who keeps his cell phone by his bed.
“A heart attack is very dangerous and timely medical treatment is crucial,” Zhu said. “By the time I arrived at Yuan’s home, he had recovered somewhat. I went home, only to be called to say he had had a second attack. I had to rush back.”
Once Zhu was summoned by phone for an emergency while he was attending the wedding party of his best friend’s daughter. He left the party to help Yuan.
“My wife complains occasionally, but she has always supported me,” Zhu said. “She tells me just go and don’t worry about the family.”
Yuan was hospitalized several times in 2012. Zhu was always on hand to help him navigate the frustrations of finding doctors and learning about diagnoses and treatments.
“I once told a doctor to save my brother,” he said. “That’s really what I am now — Yuan’s brother.”
Indeed, by some twist of fate, Zhu and Yuan share a birthday on February 8.
“Of course, we celebrate the day together each year,” Zhu said. “And on the New Year’s Eve, we include Yuan in our family dinner.”
Yuan said it’s hard to describe the joy he feels in their relationship.
“Without him, I would have been dead long ago,” Yuan said, sitting up in bed alongside a shelf Zhu made for medicine storage. “I thought I would end up alone in life, and then Zhu appeared. He gave me encouragement to go on.”
Zhu has rearranged the furniture in Yuan’s apartment so that he can move about more conveniently, using a wheelchair to get around. Every weekend, Zhu pushes Yuan in his chair around town so that he gets out and sees life.
“I want him to have fresh air, to talk with people and to see how places have changed over the year,” Zhu said.
Yuan said he has complete trust in Zhu. He has given him his bankbook and password to the account. Two years ago, Yuan said he wanted to make Zhu chief beneficiary in his will, leaving him the small apartment he bought from the money he earned repairing shoes. Zhu flatly rejected the idea.
“I am not helping him for money or reward,” Zhu said. “I help him because he needs my help, and I won’t leave him alone as long as we both are alive.”
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