Xiao Ma: A Son’s Love – The Weird Side of the Internet

Xiao Ma: A Son’s Love – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.

When you care for a parent, you want them to be happy. And when they have problems moving, you find a way, you always find a way. Usually that way involved a wheelchair. But for Xiao Ma, that way was on his back.

See his mother and father were in a car accident, an accident his father didn’t survive. His mother survived, but with a condition called cerebral atrophy, a condition that left her with a brain that would regress. She currently has the mental age of six. And Ma did a cherished, most admirable thing: he sold his business, his house, and decided to take his mother to see all of China… on his back.

He was a business owner. He surely could’ve afforded a wheelchair. But he has chosen to carry his mom on his back for a trip throughout China. Not only would pretty much nobody in America have that level of dedication, but if they did, they’d probably get stopped by a cop and charged with elder abuse. The pure amount of love it would require to shoulder such a quite physical burden, it’s something we’re just not conditioned for in America.

I take care of my mom, and she has mobility issues, and a number of other issues. And one time she was in the hospital and couldn’t see, and I fed her her eggs. And I didn’t realize how such a level of caring for someone would feel. And though what I did was no comparison, I kind of get Xiao Ma, and why he would go to that length. It’s love, pure and simple.

We get so caught up in the humanity of the world, because it sells, it bleeds and so it leads, but in our country, in our would, millions, billions of people every day are providing acts of true compassion.

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