The Full Essay
Farewell, Death
Death came again, recently. It came in a rush, just like the times before.
When my mother left, Death looked like this too. That day I held her hand, and she slowly went cold in my arms. I thought I would get used to it. But with my father, Death came more craftily. Not a single killing blow, but slowly drawing out his soul, leaving behind a body that still breathes.
My mother had already been gone for some time, and my father's dementia had gradually become a kind of daily habit. I returned from Chiang Mai to Kunming and had barely been there a few days, around the Qingming Festival, when Death paid the old father a visit on a particular day. Perhaps my mother in heaven had grown impatient and sent Death ahead to say hello.
From that day on, my father became entirely a three-year-old child.
Holding Father's Hand
I cried again.
I held my old father's hand. This hand that had once been so strong, able to lift me above his head, able to punch through a wooden board with one fist, able to write beautiful calligraphy. Now it had become a weak child's hand; the brain had completely atrophied, unable to speak with me, unable to argue with me.
My heart was bleeding.
I felt deeply guilty, deeply sad. I wanted to give him a beautiful old age (that was my imagination) but my actions had brought him to dementia. All of it was my fault.
A few months before I left him, I had not reconciled with him, had not embraced him. My parents came into this world as the two people who were best to me. They gave me everything selflessly. My understanding of love is truly poor: my way of expressing it, my attitude, my behaviour. After my mother left I was always sad, until I transferred the sadness into coldness towards my father. My coldness towards him may have been one cause of the dementia. I owe them both far too much.
I love my parents so much, but I don't know how to express it. I wanted to give my father a gift, and I gave him dementia. My heart aches.
From the time I decided to migrate back to Lijiang, I had been thinking, struggling with how to solve this problem of life. After much thought, I finally wanted to let the old man reclaim his hometown. In less than two years, he had come to this state. I feel that my way of caring was too extreme. During the period after we moved back, I was not even willing to talk to him. My attitude was so cold, I felt I could not communicate with him.
Of course, I also tried playing chess with him, taking him out to enjoy things. There were many beautiful times. Seeing him in his current state, I am truly, deeply, deeply sad.
A Three-Year-Old Child
Every day we fed him on schedule, changed his diapers, took him out to walk. His brain had already lost part of its function from the stroke. Perhaps it is not entirely a bad thing. The pain he seems to feel is not so strong; he simply functions on instinct for eating, drinking, and bodily needs.
One day I was with the carers helping him change his diaper. The sun was good that day, and we had him stand in the courtyard to change. At that moment he may have received some joyful, pleasurable stimulus. Suddenly his bowels opened freely, and standing right there he began to go. We were covered in it all at once, pouring onto the ground, onto his trousers, onto the sofa. The strong smell and the scene in that moment I cannot forget.
He stood there, a look of innocent joy on his face, like a child who has just learned to use the toilet on their own, waiting to be praised.
I cried. I laughed. I don't know what expression I had.
The Kitchen
The new kitchen built for him was constructed by me and the caregiver over these six months, by hand.
I designed every detail: the stovetop height to suit a wheelchair, cabinet doors easy to pull open, non-slip flooring, sufficient light. I imagined him sitting in his wheelchair, watching me make him a bowl of hot soup, the way he used to make it for me when I was small.
Every day, besides caring for him, I was doing renovation. Laying bricks, painting walls, installing cabinets, choosing tiles. Watching the kitchen take shape little by little, like watching a dream about to come true.
I did not realise I was building a consolation for myself.
Ghost Festival
5 September. Ghost Festival.
The day the kitchen was completed, I decided to go out and rest with friends. For the first time in six months I wanted to leave home, go out with friends for a day. Just one day, I thought. It should be fine.
The moment I stepped out the door, my father looked at me. His eyes were suddenly very bright, as if he had a thousand things to say. He reached out his hand, as if wanting to catch the hem of my clothes. He was asking me not to go.
I told him to wait a moment. I said I'd be back soon. I kissed his forehead, the way you kiss a child.
But barely two hours after leaving, the carer called me: Father had suddenly taken a turn.
I drove back, running red lights the whole way, praying the whole way. I rushed into the courtyard, rushed into the bedroom, saw him lying there, his breathing faint. I lifted him in my arms, the way you lift a baby. His head rested on my chest, very light, very light.
He left in my arms.
He never used the kitchen for a single day.
Regret and Fulfillment
I thought afterwards: perhaps this was the best farewell.
If he had eaten a meal in the kitchen, perhaps I would be more sad, because I would remember that scene, replay it again and again, blame myself for not having done better. But now the kitchen is a complete regret, an unused gift, a dream I can keep building.
Regret is forever. Fulfillment is also forever.
He asked me not to go, and I went anyway. But he waited for me to come back, and left in my arms. This was his last gift to me: letting me be his final refuge, giving me the chance to say goodbye.
Though I didn't say it. I only cried. Only held him tight. Only felt his body warmth slowly disappear.
Creator's Postscript
Throughout this period I was caring for him, and in spare moments I was recording with a charcoal pencil.
I drew him sleeping. Drew him eating. Drew him standing in the courtyard having a bowel movement. Drew the way he looked at me: that unspeakable look, a mixture of dependence and unfamiliarity.
These drawings cannot be called works. The lines are rough, the compositions casual; many were sketched from memory in the dark.
But they record my most honest emotions and the state of things at that time.
Perhaps one day I will hang these drawings in the new kitchen. That kitchen he never used.
Let it become an altar. A memorial. A dream to keep building.