One meter-tall son: I wish I could do more for my mother (4)

Yu Zhongjie is a sexagenarian with severe leg disabilities. A distance that takes most people 10 minutes to walk takes him 30 minutes. Despite the challenges, Yu has been taking care of his 87-year-old stepmother, Su Weifang, for 13 years.

It may seem cruel how life treated Yu Zhongjie. At the age of 2, Yu got polio and became disabled. A year later, he was abandoned by his birth mother. While other children went to school worry-free, Yu had just started to learn to walk and was helping to take care of his younger brothers and sisters. By the time he turned 19, Yu was able to stand up and walk without assistance. He had a job at a carton plant for eight years, after which he learned the craft of repairing shoes for many years, finally starting to live a relatively normal life.

In 2003, Yu's stepmother had a sudden cerebral infarction. During her recovery, Su broke her leg because her own children were at work, unable to attend to her. After that, Yu soon returned to his stepmother and started to take care of her. Now 13 years have passed. Yu is still with his stepmother, taking care of her day by day.

To make Su more comfortable and mobile, Yu even made her a special walker. "To buy something from the grocery store, which is only 300 meters away from home, I could not even carry all the items if I bought a little extra. I felt ashamed: if I could walk like normal people, I could take better care of my mom."

After Yu Zhongjie's story was published online, a lot of netizens were touched. Some commented that even though Yu is short, he is a great man with a noble spirit. To help Yu and his stepmother, the community where he lives donated a walker worth 7,000 yuan and turned the stairs in front of his home into a ramp. "When we were little, no one wanted to play with Yu Zhongjie, and most of us felt sorry for him. However, now we have nothing but respect for him."