An elderly couple lived downstairs. The husband was a retired middle-level official, and the wife had been the chief physician at a major hospital before her retirement. They had two children—one was a mid-level officer in a certain bureau, and the other was studying abroad.
One evening in early autumn, I saw the old lady downstairs turning over some radishes she was drying. I was curious—did a family like hers really still make their own pickles? I asked her, “Aunt Zhang, does your family still make pickles?”
The old lady, who was full of grace and radiated happiness when she smiled, responded, “Your Uncle Wang just loves the radish pickles I make. He’s been eating them all his life and can never get enough. No matter how busy work was in the past, I always made time to dry radishes for him. Now that we’re retired and have all the time in the world, it’s even easier.”
As I watched her turning the radishes, I suddenly recalled a famous quote by Lin Yutang: “To love someone, start with their stomach.” For marriages that have weathered decades of ups and downs, love may indeed be something that resides in a bowl of food, or even in a simple dish of “dried radish.”
Not every love is earth-shattering. Sometimes, real love is found in the everyday, in the simple and unadorned moments—that is one kind of marital bliss.
Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “
