Keeping a secret
What
had happened was not like such an urge to act first and think later. It seemed
a dream that couldn’t ever make it come true, but it couldn’t be helped. He
touched the back of her neck while waiting for their turn to get into that
famous Sushi Bar with her parents. She turned in a split second, so astonished
that she blushed. It was the very moment she directly looked into his eyes,
tensely and passionately he felt.
She
was quiet as usual and the conversations between her parents and him were
endless all about the draft that was shortened officially and he could start his graduate
school abroad or take that promising job offer in a law company.
She
let him in and stared at the floor, quiet. He rubbed her pale cheeks and she
kept still and did not make a tiny move. His heart pounded in his head. He
stayed with her until the day broke. Everything occurred between both of them
was the first time for her he surely understood.
She was fragile on the surface but actually zealous and strong he noticed for two years whenever he visited his aunt. He adored her for such a long time. He caught the glimpses she carelessly starred at him and pretended indifferently. He was 23 and she was 16.
She
overheard that he decided to take that scholarship for a master degree in law
in the States. He did not come to say goodbye and seemed disappeared in her
life. The young lady with the characters scatterbrained but
funny was gone since then. What had occurred spun her life in a
hundred-eighty-degree turnaround.
Matter-of-factly,
he was always in the back of her mind. She kept a simple lifestyle as a
diligent student and an aspiring designer. What about her social life?
She turned down all the admirers. She was told that he, as a lawyer, worked with a big firm of good reputation in America. And,
he was still single. Life played fair for both of them, didn’t it?
Her
parents had the opposite thoughts that she needed to have a husband and her own
children. They were acting restlessly and arranged for her blind
dates, which annoyed her. She showed her impatience without bothering to wear a makeup or dress
nicely. She met those guys through mutual friends of her parents or relatives
who sometimes nicely lied about her age.
Being married off
He
was convinced that she was introverted and self-disciplined before he met her
on the first date. He observed her closely that she looked young at her age and
was in good shape. He did most talking and she looked a bit absent-minded,
but nodded or shook her head instead of saying a word. That made him feel more
interested in exploring what was going on in her life.
They had three dates in one month, and he proposed. She
agreed to marry him after he met her parents, who
he respected much and was pleased how well she had been raised by.
Why
didn’t she refuse the proposal? It seemed that she was too exhausted to attend the countless
dates, which bored her and he was actually a decent person with a good-paid job and
got along very well with her parents.
The real reason to marry him was that she entirely gave up the slim chance to meet
her cousin again. The wish she should have abandoned after she grew more mature
with age she considered, but she let it stay with her. The relationship is
forbidden and can’t survive in reality, can it? Besides, he never made a
contact with her after he left her on that early morning.
Her
husband has never said it loud that he was fooled. She was not a virgin. How could this happen if she never dated anyone as he was told? She
cheated on him. He knew it should be okay if she was honest with him not lying
about her past. Why did she do that? Why didn’t she feel great shame at it? He
tried not to reveal his rage after he found out what she was. However, he felt the
world seemed to be ripped out from under his feet.
Suffering torments
Doesn’t
she notice their relationship has been such a surface thing for most of the
time in their marriage? Why did she blind herself to the truth that he wouldn’t
make a change? Could she have had the chance to make this unfortunate
error set right?
How
could it be possible to neglect the reluctance from him without bringing this
to the notice of others around them? Not one of her family members has a bit of
suspicion of her sadness not all about her physical illness but mental
suffering. She feels a strong urge to cry with sorrow, but she hides it well
even with efforts and difficulty. She knows he believes she is the one to
blame.
Looking
at her left leg and feeling numb unable to even move a finger, she’s lying on
the untidy and smelling bed sheet for more than a week in the guestroom
downstairs. She’s feeling this is suffocating her in an invisible trap and trying
to keep the anxiety away.
He realizes it is
true that if a man can’t find happiness at home, then it must be away from home.
He has an absolute excuse to do that she can't complains about. He could, but he doesn’t
have an affair or a one-night stand with other women at all. Somehow, he knows he
is in love with her. She is a wonderful woman in a special way, but he’s been
waiting years for the truth she owes him. Doesn’t she think about this?
What
she really needs is a loving touch from her husband that seems real intimacy nothing
about sexuality after the years she spends with him. It is the point she can’t
release what occurred between her and her cousin under a tremendous burden of
the moral codes. She’s convinced herself that her behavior with him was just an
aberration, nothing more. It comes often that guilt swamps her for not telling the
truth to her husband. What if she tells him the truth?
Isn’t
it a huge torture looking at his wife, still young and pretty but distant? He
becomes ambitious and successful in his career like a breadwinning workaholic but
his marriage is hot mess of stress and anger and there is an unfulfilled need
to be filled with.
Taking care of
He
takes her to visit the doctors and the therapists at the rehabilitation center
twice a week without a waste of time for waiting because the visits are arranged
efficiently. However, it’s impossible to find a short-term care-giver to work
nine to five at home. He already took two weeks off to look after her out of obligation
as a husband after she had a stroke. He feels reluctantly to give an intimate touch.
He
is relieved when her mother offered to stay with them for a while. What if her mother finds they have slept in separate rooms for
years from the beginning she wonders?
Wiping off her tears with her shaking hand, she hoped the tears left not a trace on her pale cheeks or in her bloodshot eyes when she heard her mother walking towards her room, a guestroom.
Wiping off her tears with her shaking hand, she hoped the tears left not a trace on her pale cheeks or in her bloodshot eyes when she heard her mother walking towards her room, a guestroom.
Patients and the
National Health Insurance
The
National Health Insurance (NHI) in Taiwan offers patients easy accessible to a
clinic or a hospital, and takes care most of the population. The patients
usually don’t have to wait a long time to be examined and then are looked
after.
Generally in an emergency room,
the patient is assisted right away without waiting hours or days like in other
countries even in a western country, where the patients might need to wait for
hours to have their turn while they are already feeling terribly.
The basic fee
for an out-patient costs differently between NT$ 150 (US$ 5) and NT$ 430 in general. After deducting the
basic fee, a hospital or a clinic claims the insufficient expense from the NHI.
That might explain why there are more pills given to a patient than needed sometimes.
Besides,
There was a special case which was
released on February 24th, more than a couple weeks ago. It is a 31-year-old man in Kaohsiung City, the biggest harbor city in Taiwan with more
than 2.5 million residents, visited 503 doctors at 26 medical institutions due
to a car accident, chronic allergy and other illnesses last year. The health
agency said this patient would be monitored this year.
It truly is a fact that the waste of resources exists. This might explain why recently the financial pressures of running the system appear and are needed to be scrutinized thoughtfully and immediately.
However, some special case like a surgery before conducting is monitored, evaluated and conducted very carefully by the HIS. And, a patient might need to pay more if one willingly chooses a different way or various materials for a treatment. Certainly, not all cases are subsidized by the NHI, such as a plastic surgery or aggressive but more promising cancer treatments, which the rich can only afford.
One
of the NHI's policies has been criticized. It is that some migrants have settled down
abroad for decades without paying tax yearly. But, they are allowed to receive expensive fatal surgeries or dental treatments if needed after they pay a three-month health
insurance, adding up less than NT$5,000.
The
long-term care services are in practice in Taiwan too, which intends to promise the
elderly and the disabled a better quality of life. However, the increasing
numbers of the elderly and the unavoidable existence of the disable population
is an unsolved issue in a big city or a remote area in Taiwan. The lack of both
the manpower and the continuous financial support from the government are the
main reasons failing to help the elderly and the disabled to gain a decent
life.
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