Our child
Through an improbable chain of events, the life of Xinyi Song, a three year old girl, was permanently changed on May 12th, 2008, in the town of Beichuan, one of the hardest hit places in the earthquake.
Xinyi's parents were peasants who moved from their village to Beichuan to make a better living. They worked in a local restaurant, and left Xinyi to stay with her grandparents in the village, which is a norm among migrant workers.
Xinyi just celebrated her third birthday two weeks earlier. Her parents decided it was time for her to receive the better preschool education that Beichuan had to offer. Xinyi arrived in the morning of May 12th, 2008.
The earthquake struck a few hours later, when her family was on their way to her daycare. Her parents died by the massive hit from a collapsed building. Xinyi survived - her parents saved her by forming an arch with their backbones. Albeit they did everything they possibly could to protect their daughter, Xinyi did not escape the disaster completely intact.
Her right leg was pressed against a massive chunk of debris. When she was finally rescued after a 20-hour long effort, her leg had to be amputated. Along with the amputation was a severe lung infection. Her trachea had to be attached to a breathing machine so that she would not suffocate.
But Xinyi survived. When she opened her eyes after the operation, welcoming her was the familiar sights of her grandparents. In the days after, she would not say much. She rarely cried, nor smiled. Most of the time, she would lie on her bed, looking at the empty ceiling. On occasions she did speak, she would repeat to her nurses that she loved cartoons, and her dream was to be a dancer.
She learned from her grandparents that her parents were gone. When the trauma started sinking in, Xinyi would speak in her Sichuan dialect, "I want baba (dad), I want mama (mom)."
Her story was spread by the media. Many people came to the hospital to see her and comfort her. Whenever women of her mother's age sit next to her, she would touch their hands, and called them quietly, "mama"; and men, "baba".
Child, you are right. We are your moms, and we are your dads. You, together with all the children who were made orphans by the earthquake, are children of us all.