SINGAPORE: At its core, perhaps, the story of Wang Xiao and Yu Jianping is all about the healing power of love.
Over a decade ago, Ms Wang, then 24, was told that she urgently needed a kidney transplant because of uremia, a condition where kidney functions decline. Otherwise, she only had a year to live.
The problem was that there were no matches in her family, so she could not get a transplant from them. The South China Morning Post reported that, upon the suggestion of another patient, Ms Wang, who is from northwestern China, then took the unusual step of placing an advertisement for marriage in a cancer support group, saying she was looking for a man who would marry her and who would give her his kidney after he died.
She promised, “I will take the best care of you after marriage. Please forgive me; I just want to live.”
It just so happened that 27-year-old Mr Yu, who had been a business manager before he fell ill, saw the ad and answered her. He had been diagnosed with myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells, and had relapsed several times.
Significantly, however, his blood type matched Ms Wang’s.
The two were quietly married in July 2013. In addition to taking care of him, Ms Wang promised to watch over Mr Yu’s widowed father, who had sold their home to pay for Mr Yu’s medical care, after he passed away.
Falling in love
While they pretty much kept their marriage private and continued to live their own lives, their daily communication blossomed into affection for one another, fed by acts of kindness towards each other.
Ms Wang came with him to all of his medical treatments, and Mr Yu began to make soup for her. SCMP noted that she has a “playful nature” that made him laugh, and that her optimism spread over to him and made him happier.
As he needed a bone-marrow transplant, she took it upon herself to make and sell flower bouquets at a street stall, telling their story on little cards that she put beside the flowers. This drew in more customers. In the end, she earned and saved 500,000 yuan (S$91,500) for his surgery.
A year after they registered their marriage, his condition stabilised at the same time that she began to do better. Her doctors told her that she needed fewer and fewer regular dialysis sessions, to the point of not needing a kidney transplant after all.
In February 2015, they celebrated with a marriage banquet, and they are still doing well a decade later, and now have their own flower business. SCMP noted that their love story was even made into a movie last year called Viva La Vida, which earned around S$7 million at the box office. The newspaper reports they are living quietly and in stable health in Xian, Shaanxi province, China.
/TISG
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