A miracle! Siblings provide “seamless care,” and their mother, who had been in a vegetative state, has awakened! Recently, the People’s Daily app published a story about two siblings in Fengyang County who took turns caring for their mother, who had been in a vegetative state. In no time, their heartwarming tale of filial piety and familial love went viral online, touching millions of netizens across the country.

　 　After a severe illness, my mother fell into a vegetative state.

　　The brother and sister are from Damiao Town, Fengyang County. The elder sister’s name is Zhuang Yilin, and the younger brother’s name is Zhuang Shisuo; both work in Nanjing. In mid-April this year, they learned that their mother, Shi Baoying, who had been left behind at home, could no longer see clearly and often suffered from severe headaches. They brought her to Nanjing’s Jiangsu Provincial People’s Hospital for treatment. During the diagnostic process, Zhuang Shisuo discovered that her condition was steadily worsening: her vision was nearly gone, and her headaches were growing increasingly intense. After examination, the hospital determined that she had a meningioma and would require surgery. Doctors explained that, due to the tumor’s unusual location, the procedure carried significant risks. Unable to bear seeing their mother endure such suffering, and knowing that without surgery her life might be in grave danger, the siblings decided to proceed with the operation.

　　Following surgery, the mother unfortunately suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and developed cerebral edema, remaining in a persistent coma and requiring admission to the intensive care unit. Zhuang Shisuo sent his sister home and stayed day and night outside the ICU door. On May 4, doctors performed a second craniotomy, which relieved the edema; however, she remained comatose, in a vegetative state.

　　During that time, my mother suffered from recurrent fevers due to an intracranial infection, lasting for 22 consecutive days. Zhuang Shisuo slept on the floor in the hallway outside her room, waiting from day into night and then from night back into day. Occasionally, the medical staff would ask him to push her to the CT scanner, and he would be overjoyed, for those were the only moments he got to see her.

　　In mid-May, his mother was transferred to a regular ward. Zhuang Shisuo became extremely busy: aside from fetching meals from the hospital cafeteria, he stayed by her side almost constantly, assisting the medical staff with her treatment and closely monitoring her condition. His sister kept vigil at her mother’s bedside alongside him.

　　Turning over, patting his back, and giving him a massage—these were the tasks he performed without fail every day. His mother lay quietly in her hospital bed, showing no response beyond her breathing and heartbeat.

　　In late May, the hospital recommended that they undergo rehabilitation therapy, so they were transferred to the Rehabilitation Center of Nanjing Zijin Hospital.

　　After years of hardship, the family has worked tirelessly through both joy and adversity.

　　Zhuang Shisuo’s family was an unusual one. As a child, his parents divorced, and his mother raised him and his older sister on their own. She scoured the town for odd jobs, eventually landing work dismantling cement bags at a factory. Using scissors, she cut the threads from each bag, earning just one cent per bag—barely enough to bring in ten or eight yuan a day. The process left her covered in dust and cement, turning her into a “gray‑haired woman” every single day. When the factory ran out of work, she would hop on her tricycle and pedal more than twenty kilometers to another plant, searching for whatever scraps of employment she could find. Through it all, she labored tirelessly to keep the family afloat. Every year, during the late autumn harvest season, she would take him and his sister out to the fields to gather leftover crops, using what they gleaned to make ends meet. Back then, young Zhuang Shisuo made a silent vow: when he grew up, he would work with all his might to give his hardworking, weary mother a better life.

　　After graduating from middle school, her older sister, Zhuang Yilin, went out to work, helping to shoulder some of their mother’s responsibilities and using her earnings to support the family. When she first started working, she made just over 400 yuan a month; she kept a little more than 100 yuan for living expenses and sent the rest home. Zhuang Shisuo said that the family’s very first television and its first telephone were both purchased by his sister, and that all his subsequent tuition was paid with money she earned. “I’m 12 years older than my younger brother,” Zhuang Yilin remarked. “I treat him like a little kid, buying him clothes, shoes, schoolbags, and all sorts of other things.”

　　After graduating from high school, Zhuang Shisuo also chose to go out and work to ease his mother’s burden. The siblings toiled away in other places; a few years later, they each started families and had children of their own. Their mother was overjoyed—no longer needing to toil, she could stay home to care for her grandchildren and savor the joys of family life. But little did she know that this newfound happiness and peace were utterly shattered by a severe illness that struck this year.

　　Day and night of vigil, the mother finally regained consciousness.

　　Zhuang Shisuo’s family was never well-off; his mother’s two surgeries and subsequent treatments not only wiped out all of his and his sister’s savings but also left them deeply in debt. Determined to help, Zhuang Shisuo decided to work alongside his sister to earn a living while taking turns caring for their mother.

　　Sister Zhuang Yilin said, “It wasn’t easy for Mom to raise the two of us all by herself. To us, a home isn’t a home without her—there’s not a single one of the three of us who can be missing.” Her sister feels deeply for her younger brother, who is exhausted from working night shifts, but he, in turn, worries about her. Brother Zhuang Shisuo added, “Whenever I get a day off, I always ask my sister to go home while I stay here to keep watch for a full day and night.” And so, the siblings began taking turns providing round-the-clock care: in the evenings, after work, his sister brings her child to the hospital to look after their mother, while he proactively requests his supervisor to assign him as many night shifts as possible, spending his daytime breaks at the hospital by her side. Together, they seamlessly pass the baton, tirelessly guarding their mother.

　　One day at the end of June, Zhuang Yilin noticed that his mother’s fingers were moving again. “We were thrilled—our minds were filled with nothing but, ‘Mom’s back!’” Their love had finally brought her back to life. Her condition improved steadily; soon she could move the corners of her mouth and show facial expressions, then gradually began to stand up and walk out of bed—so much so that even the doctors called it a miracle. Today, she is still recovering, and her brother and sister continue to care for her with great devotion. Because company policy requires him to alternate between night shifts and day shifts, when he’s on duty during the day, he spends the nights at the hospital by her side. On days when both siblings are working, they hire a hospital caregiver to help look after their mother. Their greatest hope is that she will recover soon, be discharged, and live happily with them once more.

　　Author: Chen Youtian, Qin Tian