24-Year-Old Man Takes ‘Wedding Photos’ with 85-Year-Old Woman – The Heartwarming Story Behind It
When the photo went viral, the story behind it was revealed, touching the hearts of many.
Chinese social media was once abuzz with a special “wedding photo.” In the picture, an elderly woman wore a wedding dress, her hand gently resting on the shoulder of a young man in a firefighter’s uniform. Both of them smiled happily.
The woman in the wedding dress was Duong Tai Anh (85 years old), and the young man was Truong Giai Cang (24 years old).
The young man called her “grandmother,” but in reality, they were not biologically related.
A Kind Woman and the Abandoned Children
Duong Tai Anh was a logistics staff member at a hospital in Jiangxi Province.
Early in the morning on March 10, 1982, like every other day, she went to the hospital for work. On her way, she heard the cries of a baby.
Following the sound, she found an infant girl lying near the railway tracks. Without hesitation, she took off her coat and wrapped the baby in it. At dawn, she brought the child to a local institution, but they refused to help due to a lack of funding.
Bringing the child home, Duong Tai Anh felt deeply worried. At the time, she already had five children, with the youngest only 12 years old. Taking in another child would significantly increase her burden.
Yet, she couldn’t bear to abandon the baby. She decided to go through the adoption process and named the girl Phuong Phuong.
Strangely, after adopting Phuong Phuong, she continued to find more abandoned babies. In total, she took in six children, raising them as her own grandchildren.
By this time, she had retired. To support the children, she cultivated farmland, raised pigs, and collected scraps to sell. However, her scavenging work attracted ridicule—people mocked her, saying, “Why would someone with a pension rummage through garbage?”
From then on, she no longer collected scraps during the day. “She would sneak out when we were asleep and return before we woke up,” recalled Truong Giai Cang, one of the children she rescued in 1997.
Her husband was often away, so all responsibilities fell on her shoulders. She barely slept, getting only two to three hours of rest each day.
Her biological children, feeling sorry for her struggles, suggested she stop taking in more abandoned children. But she shook her head, saying, “Every child is a life. Saving a life is worth more than building seven pagodas.”
Since they couldn’t change her mind, her children chose to share the burden, while also helping to find suitable adoptive families for the children.
However, whenever potential adoptive parents came forward, Duong Tai Anh set strict conditions to ensure the children would be treated well.
In the end, she found two families she could trust and allowed them to adopt Linh Linh and Truong Giai Cang.
But days later, both children cried incessantly, begging to return to her. Seeing this from afar, her heart ached.
She wanted to take them back, but the adoptive families demanded a large sum of money in return. Determined, she borrowed and scraped together enough money to “redeem” them. From then on, she never gave any of her children away.
“I’d rather struggle a little more than let them suffer. They may not have the best food, but they will always have love,” she said.
Many questioned why she chose such hardship when she could have lived comfortably on her pension. She simply smiled.
“I’m not afraid of hardship. To me, whether they are my own children or adopted ones, I love them the same. I just want them to have a good life. I’m happy as long as they are happy.”
However, years of labor took a toll on her health—she grew frailer, and her back hunched over.