12th day of the first month of the year Gui Mao
Commemorating the Departure of a Loved One
I usually wake up around nine o’clock in the morning. At that time, sunlight would filter into my bedroom through two layers of windows. Yes, I sleep naked and don’t pull the curtains.
In the early morning, or more precisely, in the morning, when I’m not fully awake, I seem to regress to my childhood: I used to worry about things that rarely happened, such as feeling like it’s the end of the world or fearing that my mother, who seemed frail, would leave me one day. I couldn’t accept such facts when I was a child and would often be deeply saddened and upset, lingering in those emotions for a long time. This feeling left a lasting impression on me, as if my mother had already passed away, and I couldn’t accept the feeling of losing a loved one, nor could I imagine or accept such a thing happening.
As I dozed off past nine o’clock, I dreamed of such scenes again, that familiar feeling returning, but not as intense as before—over the years, I eventually realized one thing: my mother is healthy, and her departure from me is still a distant prospect. So, those irrational worries and anxieties gradually dissipated. After all these years, I’ve caught a whiff of that feeling of someone passing away again. It’s the smell of death.
Before the New Year, when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak, I had just recovered from a serious illness. My mother had been in contact with me for a long time, but no symptoms appeared. One phone call from my grandma informed my mother that grandpa seemed to be critically ill and hadn’t eaten for several days. My parents were immediately on edge. On the one hand, with me just recovering from a serious illness, our home was undoubtedly a virus breeding ground. The elderly are already fragile during this time, and coupled with the fact that the COVID-19 virus targets the elderly, they were eager to return to their hometown but helpless to do so. However, within two days, my mother was struck down by the virus and was bedridden for several days with no signs of improvement. After about a week, her condition improved slightly, and she hurriedly booked tickets to return to her hometown. By then, it was nearing the end of the year, and I thought we probably wouldn’t be able to reunite for the New Year, which turned out to be true.
On the sixth day after the New Year, my mother returned because grandpa’s condition had improved significantly, he was able to eat, and he was sleeping better. I heard that during the days my mother was with grandpa, he would toss and turn day and night, making it difficult for anyone to feel at ease. The caregivers constantly had to adjust his position to make him more comfortable lying down. So, during the first few days of my mother’s recovery from illness, she didn’t rest well.
When my mother returned, she wanted to spend more time with me and suggested we go get our hair done together. However, the hair salon didn’t open until the eleventh day of the new year, so we went grocery shopping instead. During this grocery trip, my mother let me buy many drinks that we used to see but couldn’t afford. She said she wanted to try them all and asked if there were any special snacks I wanted to eat… This made me feel strange. Firstly, I felt like my days were numbered. Secondly, I realized that I wouldn’t have much time left with my mother.
That was one of the few shopping trips that left a deep impression on me.
When we returned home in the evening, I tried one of the drinks I thought would taste good. It was in a pear-shaped glass bottle, a blend of pineapple and some kind of curry flavoring. It didn’t taste as sweet as I expected, but rather had a subtle fruity flavor, more like unsweetened pineapple mixed with spices. However, I found it very delicious. That night, I felt my mother was very happy, but we didn’t talk much. In the middle of the night, she sent me a message on WeChat:
“Is ‘Man Jiang Hong’ good?”
“It’s okay.”
“Then let’s go watch it another day.”
“Sure.”
We never ended up watching that movie.
On the seventh, eighth, and ninth days of the new year, I spent time catching up with some middle school classmates, chatting for four or five hours. On another day, I visited my calligraphy teacher. Until the eleventh day of the new year when my father returned from our hometown, neither my mother nor I found a day to go watch a movie. Yao Yao said, “Hurry up and go, don’t delay. If Auntie wants to go, take her quickly.”
On the night of the eleventh day of the new year, my aunt called and told my mother that grandpa had deteriorated again, hadn’t eaten for several days, and hoped she could come back to see him soon. So, my mother decided to return to Hebei on the thirteenth day of the new year.
At noon on the twelfth day of the new year, during a meal with a teacher, I suggested going to see a movie, something my mother had wanted to do for a long time. But in the end, due to “household chores,” it didn’t happen.
Around five or six in the afternoon, my mother was helping me “pluck leg hair.” My father received a phone call from grandma, and after a brief conversation, he hung up.
“Who was calling?”
“It was your mom. Your dad left in the afternoon around one or two o’clock.”
“What?!!”
“Your mom said your dad left around one or two o’clock in the afternoon!”
My mother was shocked. She asked in a panic and then hurriedly went to find her earphones (because she has severe hearing loss and relies heavily on earphones). Then she made a video call to my grandma and asked in astonishment:
“Has my dad really left?”
After receiving confirmation, she burst into tears, repeatedly saying:
“Why did he leave so suddenly… Why didn’t he wait for me…”
And all of this happened while I didn’t dare to look up. There was a moment when I could keenly feel my mother’s sadness, but most of the time, I couldn’t. It felt like going back to my childhood in my dreams in the morning, feeling the pain of losing my mother again. But once I woke up, that feeling disappeared—by not looking at my mother, I lost that shared feeling. My mother cried for a while, then stared blankly at the ashtray for a while, pondering and dazed, while still plucking my leg hair. In those ten minutes, I could feel her helplessness all along.
Suddenly, she asked me, “Will you go back too?”
I nodded.
Originally, I wasn’t planning to go back because I thought, just like last time, grandpa was actually quite healthy, always missing his children, and would do these things. I didn’t expect this time to be real.
That thin old man who spoke a mix of Hebei and Shandong dialects has finally
left.
I was grandpa’s favorite eldest grandson.
I don’t have many memories of grandpa because my parents and grandpa’s family didn’t live close by, so we didn’t see each other often. Some scattered memories from my childhood and a hasty meeting after the college entrance exam are all I have. In my impression, that little old man always lay on the bed in the living room with the TV on 24 hours a day, the dim light mixing with the flickering TV screen on his squinting face.
There was also one time in his backyard, a small plot of land for vegetables, where he sat on a small stool and combed through the chives he grew. I had never seen chives combed so neatly or anyone combing chives one by one like that. He gently and slowly combed through the chives, then asked me,
“Do your grandparents grow vegetables too?”
“Yes, they do.”
“What do they grow? Are they as big and good as mine?”
“Yes, they are big and good, but I can’t remember what vegetables they have.”
“Hehe… mine must be better… Look at my chives…”
I looked curiously at his palm-sized vegetable plot. Although it wasn’t large, it was well taken care of, with many small farming tools neatly arranged. Each grafting pole and climbing frame stood upright, and watching his meticulous and soothing movements, I guessed how dedicated he was to this small vegetable plot. But rather than saying he was taking care of it, it’s more like he was “playing” with it. I vividly remember it was a cloudy day, with no rain, and grandpa was wearing a white vest, sitting on a very small elongated wooden stool.
But most of the time, he sat on a small stool smoking a water pipe.
I was very interested and curious about him smoking the water pipe and was fascinated by the smell of the tobacco leaves in his pipe. Every time grandpa took a puff, the wisps of smoke would float over, and I would eagerly sniff them. The aroma, filtered through water, carrying a hint of moisture, and the smell of the finely cultivated tobacco leaves from Guangdong Province burning, was a great temptation to my young, sensitive sense of smell.
One time, I took his big water pipe and took a big puff like him, only to choke on it several times. Grandpa chuckled on the side, then took his water pipe back and murmured,
“You can’t smoke this… you can’t smoke this…”
This scene and his words reminded me of the story of Kong Yiji dividing peas for the greedy children in Lu Xun’s writings, murmuring,
“Not much… not much…”
Most of my impressions of grandpa come from my mother’s descriptions and depictions of him. But today, on the train back to my hometown, I’ll stop writing here.
Written on the k1117 train.