After bringing Pengpeng home to stay with me, I understood one thing very quickly.
No matter how hard it was, I had to raise her myself.
Not because I was especially brave, and not because I had already figured everything out. It was because she was my child. She needed someone to hold her, feed her, and turn to look at her the moment she cried. Naturally, that person was me.
Still, taking care of her wasn't quite like taking care of other children.
She had a pacemaker implanted in her chest. When we came home from the hospital, the medical staff gave me specific instructions: electronic devices shouldn't be held too close to her. It was best to keep them at least thirty centimeters away.
Cell phones were becoming more common at the time.
And people came and went through the pharmacy all day.
Pengpeng was fair and clean-looking, tiny and delicate. Whenever customers saw her, they couldn't help wanting to tease her or hold her.
Every time someone reached out, the first thing I paid attention to wasn't whether they knew how to hold a baby. It was—
Where's your phone?
"Sir, please keep your phone away from her."
At first, I was really nervous.
It wasn't the kind of nervousness you could just mention in passing. My whole body would tense up. Whenever a customer came near, I'd instinctively look at his pockets. When someone picked up Pengpeng, my eyes would follow the cell phone on his body. Even though the medical staff had already explained everything, I would still go over it again and again in my head: Was the distance enough? Could it accidentally touch her? Could my carelessness cause something to happen to her?
Sometimes even we would forget. We'd pick up Pengpeng, and then someone nearby would suddenly remind us:
"Hey! You've got your phone on you. Don't get so close to her."
Every time I heard that, my heart would tighten.
But life couldn't stay tense forever.
The pharmacy still had to open. Customers would still come in. Pengpeng couldn't spend her whole life in a place completely free of electronic devices. So little by little, we learned to find a distance we could actually live with between caution and everyday life.
After a while, it became the most natural habit in our lives.
Anyone who wanted to hold Pengpeng would first check for electronic devices on themselves.
No one thought it was a hassle anymore.
And I stopped treating it as a disaster waiting to happen every single time.
We had simply learned how to live with the little pacemaker in her chest.
At first, the pacemaker was like a reminder, reminding me that she was different from other children. Later, it slowly became part of daily life. Like bottles, diapers, and a stroller, it became something we paid attention to every day without having to be afraid of it every moment.
Pengpeng gradually grew, and it was time for her to start eating solid foods.
Once, Fourth Sister gave me some abalone and asked me to make porridge for the baby.
I carefully simmered a pot of abalone porridge and fed it to her one bite at a time.
Eating took Pengpeng a little more effort than it did other children, so I never rushed her. She actually had a good appetite. As long as I fed her slowly, she would keep eating one bite at a time.
When I fed her, I was often more patient than I was with other children.
Not because she was especially difficult to care for, but because I knew that every bite she swallowed took a little more effort than it did for other children. If she ate slowly, I waited. If she stopped to catch her breath, I set the spoon aside. If she didn't eat much, I didn't panic right away. I simply remembered how much she'd eaten that day and figured out how to make up for it at the next meal.
By then, I was already used to watching her closely.
I paid attention to her complexion, her breathing, how much she ate, how much she sweated, even how long her cries lasted.
But I also slowly came to understand that watching her didn't mean I had to be afraid.
I could pay attention to her without imagining the worst every time.
But after that meal, I noticed something very strange.
Whenever she sweated, a strong fishy smell appeared on her body.
Especially around her head.
The first time, I didn't think much of it.
But later, I tried fish soup, and porridge cooked with fish or other seafood, and the same thing happened again.
Strangely, she didn't break out in a rash or swell up. She didn't seem to have any other unusual discomfort.
It was just that after she sweated—
there was a very strong fishy smell.
At first, I was still a little worried.
How could a mother not care when her child suddenly had a strange smell? I even wondered whether something was wrong with her body, whether it had something to do with her heart, or whether it was caused by her medication or pacemaker.
But when I looked more carefully, she could eat and sleep normally, and she had no fever or discomfort.
So I could only keep it in mind and continue observing her.
Her godmother noticed it too.
Her godmother was a customer we knew very well, a little older than me. After Pengpeng was born, she naturally became the child's godmother.
She practiced Buddhism and was vegetarian.
Almost every day after work, she'd stop by the pharmacy, pick Pengpeng up, and watch television while playing with her. Once things settled down at the pharmacy, she'd return the baby to me and go home to rest.
One day, she held Pengpeng and sniffed her.
"Hey, how did this happen? Why does our Pengpeng smell so fishy?"
"I don't know either. It seems to happen whenever she eats seafood."
Her godmother thought about it for a moment.
"Could it be that this child is supposed to be vegetarian?"
I knew she was worried about the baby.
The words sounded like a guess at the cause, but what I really heard was how much she loved Pengpeng. Everyone was afraid she'd eat the wrong thing, afraid her body wouldn't be able to handle it, afraid we'd overlooked something.
But I'd also observed that when I made soup with pork bones, or cooked porridge with chicken bones or chicken, Pengpeng didn't have the same reaction.
So we didn't keep dwelling on it.
She was still little, and she still needed proper nutrition.
In the end, the conclusion was simple: she just needed to eat a little less seafood.
That was when I began to understand that caring for a child with special needs didn't mean being afraid to give her anything, and it didn't mean scaring myself half to death over every unusual symptom.
It meant paying a little more attention than other people, having a little more patience, and adjusting based on her actual reactions.
I couldn't remove every risk from her life.
But I could stay by her side and figure out, little by little, what kind of life suited her.
Pengpeng was really attached to me.
How attached?
Her godmother came every day. By all rights, they couldn't have been more familiar with each other.
But every day, when her godmother tried to take her from my arms, we still had to put on a whole show first.
Struggling.
Squirming.
Crying.
Desperately refusing to leave her mother.
Her godmother would hold her, I'd let go, and she'd cry as if we were sending her somewhere terrible.
Every time I saw her cry, my heart softened.
Her body was already working harder than other children's, and now she was crying like this too. Should I take her back? Was she really uncomfortable? Did she not want to leave me?
But I also knew that her godmother truly loved her, and I still had work to do.
I couldn't stop everything just because she cried. And I couldn't let her stay only in my arms, unable to let anyone else near her, just because her body was different.
So I often forced myself to let go even as my heart ached.
But once her godmother was really holding her securely and I had gone back to work, Pengpeng would finally seem to realize—
All right.
Mom isn't coming to save me.
Her cries would slowly quiet down.
A little while later, she'd be sitting happily in her godmother's arms, watching TV and playing. The two of them would be getting along wonderfully.
Watching them from the side, I would feel something I couldn't quite put into words.
So she wasn't helpless without me.
I could hand her over to someone else, and she would be just fine.
It was a small, ordinary kind of relief, but it slowly taught me that not everything had to be done by me alone.
And the next day?
We'd do the whole thing all over again.
Back then, I had a very close confidante. We weren't biological sisters, but she was an important sister in my life.
She and Pengpeng's godmother happened to take opposite shifts, one during the day and one at night.
She often came to help me during the day and doted on Pengpeng. Her godmother came after work to keep her company.
But the little princess showed them no favoritism.
Getting taken from Mom's arms during the day?
Cry first.
Getting taken from Mom's arms at night?
Cry again.
Seeing them every day didn't make any difference.
If there was a tug-of-war to be had, not a single round could be skipped.
If anyone had special privileges, it was probably her dad.
She cried when he took her from my arms too, but usually only for a moment before quieting down.
So I figured Pengpeng had probably arranged the order in her heart a long time ago.
Mom first.
Dad second.
Everyone else?
Please pass the little princess's test first.
And through all those handoffs, again and again, I slowly went from the tension of believing that only I could care for her to the comfort of knowing that I could let other people love her too.
For me, that was actually a huge change.
As she gradually grew, her condition remained stable.
By then, I wasn't as anxious as I had been in the beginning, checking her breathing every few minutes.
When I had first brought her home, I often woke up in the middle of the night, and the first thing I did was reach out and touch her to make sure she was still breathing. If she slept too quietly, I was afraid. If she suddenly moved, I would wake in a fright.
Back then, it was as if my eyes were always fixed on her.
Every breath she took, every frown, every change in the sound of her cries could make my heart sink.
But as the days passed, she woke up safely again and again, ate safely, and grew safely.
Only then did I slowly realize that I couldn't live forever with the thought, What if something suddenly happens to her?
I had already entrusted this child to heaven.
Since I had given her over, I might as well live my life properly.
That wasn't giving up, and it didn't mean I didn't care.
If anything, it was because I cared so much that I knew I couldn't let fear lead me every day.
All I could do was pay attention to what needed watching, take care of what I could, and let her grow at her own pace with everything else.
So I began simply watching her grow as part of everyday life.
At around four months, she slowly learned to crawl.
Two tiny baby teeth emerged from her gums.
Then, one by one, more teeth slowly came in.
In my eyes, every stage of her growth was much the same as any other child's.
When she rolled over, I was happy. When she crawled, I chased after her. When she started teething, I got her teething toys.
Those things all seemed ordinary, but to me, each one was like a small piece of proof—that she was growing, and that she really could grow up.
When she was still tiny, the jumping bed had a higher platform that let her lie there and sleep.
Once she learned to roll and move around, I was afraid she'd fall, so I removed the upper platform.
That lowered the place where she stayed, making the surrounding rails relatively higher and much safer.
Of course, I still thought about her condition while I did these things.
But those thoughts were no longer simply fear. I was thinking practically: How could I make things safer for her? How could she roll, crawl, and play like other children within a safe environment?
I didn't want to keep her from touching everything just because she had a pacemaker.
I only wanted to arrange the environment properly so she could grow up as freely as possible in a place where I could keep an eye on her.
She started having toys of her own, along with all kinds of teething toys.
When teething made her uncomfortable, she'd pick one up and chew on it.
When she was in a good mood, she could play by herself for a long time.
When she was in a bad mood?
Cry.
Cry.
Cry some more.
The only solution was—Mom's arms.
Once, she was crying so hard that nothing I did could soothe her, so I had no choice but to pick her up.
Naturally, that was when a patient came to pick up some medication.
What could I do?
I still had to work.
I was a little helpless in that moment.
I wanted to hold her properly, but someone was waiting at the counter. I wanted to put her down, but I was afraid she'd cry even harder.
So I held Pengpeng with one arm and used the other to toss the medication into the pill-packing machine as usual.
The customer stood at the counter, staring in amazement.
"Wow! How can you work like that?"
I looked down at myself.
The baby was secure in my arms, and the medication was still getting packed.
"This is how I do it. You can see that I'm still packing the medication, right? Nothing's been delayed."
Life wasn't going to give me an extra arm just because I was holding one more child.
So I had to learn to use the one I had left.
That was when I realized that a mother doesn't wait until every condition is ready before she's able to care for her child.
A lot of the time, the child arrives, the problems arrive with her, and all I can do is learn how to manage while I'm still afraid.