CHANGCHUN: People always associate a phoenix's nirvana with a wonderful experience, the best they could wish for in the worst situation.

But in real life, being reborn is in fact painful, and cannot happen without the constant love and care of others, 69-year-old Xu Lihua, the 207th torchbearer of Monday's torch relay in Changchun, capital of Jilin province, said.

A Changchun native, Xu is a celebrity as a three-time torchbearer. A multiple championship winner of tai chi, Xu carried the torch for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, the 2007 Asian Winter Games, and yesterday for the 2008 Olympic Games.

In 1975, when Xu was hit on the head during an accident, most of her family and friends wondered if she would survive.

After six days of rescue, she made it yet remained unconscious in the following years.

"Whenever people come to know that I was once a vegetative patient, they always say that there must have been a miracle," Xu said.

"In fact, this couldn't have happened, had there not been my husband, who would never abandon me under any circumstances."

During those unconscious years, her husband, an army official, would talk, massage and sing to her whenever he got time.

When Xu finally came back to life, she, at that time, 38, was just like a newborn, with no memory of her past, and not able to talk or to walk.

"The first word I learnt was 'mama,' but I had no idea of what it meant," Xu recalled.

It took another year for Xu to learn to walk, when a friend of her husband recommended tai chi for a quicker recovery.

With her brain function recovered only to 70 percent, it took Xu more than half a year to fully grasp the basic movements of tai chi, while a normal people would take at most one month.

Yet with constant encouragement from family and friends, Xu kept practicing and became a master of tai chi.

"My husband brought me back my life, but it is tai chi that brought home the meaning of my life," she said.

"During the first few months (after I came back to consciousness), I was so depressed that I thought of suicide several times. But now I consider myself the happiest person in the world."

Moreover, decades of constant tai chi practicing has given Xu a younger appearance than her age.

"During the torch relay in Turin, some, in their 30s, finished their 400-m run panting. But I found it too short. I could have run another 400 easily," the proud Xu said.