I Finally Understood That I Am No Longer a Child

When my father-in-law passed away in 2014, I was at his side performing CPR on him. My wife, her younger sister, and her younger brother were rushing home on the high-speed rail; I hoped to keep my father-in-law's life going until his children could come home and see him one last time. But regrettably he went too quickly, and I could do nothing. My father-in-law died with a smile; he was, to this day, the most unruffled person I have ever seen leave this world. This way of parting suited his temperament: he was broad-minded and fearless all his life, not excepting the fear of death.

Two years before my father-in-law's death, my own mother had passed away. As we held the traditional "fifth-seven" ritual for my mother, my father-in-law suffered his second stroke and was hospitalized. After I finished the fifth-seven rites for my mother, I hurried to the hospital to visit and attend my father-in-law, fulfilling a son's duty on my wife's behalf. Because my wife and I had been classmates since junior high and I had often visited her family in our student days, my father-in-law knew me deeply and trusted me greatly. Although I was only his son-in-law, he had always regarded me as his most trustworthy eldest son. During that stroke, on his sickbed, he entrusted his affairs after death to me, saying his life would not last long and he could depart at any time, and hoping that henceforth I would look after the whole family.

Unexpectedly, his words proved prophetic. Two years later my father-in-law suddenly suffered a third stroke, from which he could not be rescued. He finally let go and departed. What comforted me was that I had been able to get home to see him before he died, to attend him for a few days, and to repay his appreciation and affection.

My marriage to my wife had nearly fallen through; it was entirely because of my father-in-law's appreciation and trust, overruling all objections, that he had entrusted his daughter's lifelong happiness to me. After the wedding he continually urged his daughter to fulfill filial and wifely duties in her husband's home, giving strong support to the stability and happiness of our small family. When my mother fell ill, my father-in-law was the first to call me, urging me to treat her vigorously and telling me to ask him for money if I was short. To meet such a reasonable and generous father-in-law in life is an immense happiness.

My father-in-law trusted my ability to handle affairs, and in his later years handed all the family's major matters over to me; without me present he lacked the confidence to manage them well. His recognition of my character and ability went that far, which touched me deeply. But my father-in-law, who had dominated the scene for half his life, could not ultimately escape the ravages of illness and passed away after three strokes. He lived freely and stubbornly: after his first stroke the doctors demanded he stop smoking, but he refused to the death—his addiction was simply too entrenched for willpower to overcome. Without medication to sustain him, his blood pressure had at times reached over 210; he was unfortunately taken too early.

Counting my father-in-law, within four years I had seen off five close elders: my mother, my two aunts to whom I was closest, my father-in-law, and my aunt by marriage. Of these five, the oldest was only sixty-two, and the youngest was my mother, who was not yet fifty-eight. There were three causes of death: cancer, stroke, and pulmonary obstruction.

Every time I return home to tend the graves and look at the tombs of these elders who had been alive just a few years earlier, I am filled with feeling: how swiftly the boat of life passes. In the snap of a finger they are all gone. These elders who once treated me as a child have left this world one after another.

My father now lives back home, among the village's elders with musical talent; they have formed a band and every few days play dirges for their peers to send them off at funerals. My father tells me his companions are leaving one after another, and that when his time comes it may also be in an instant. Joking with his old pals, he says they now take turns reporting to the King of Hell, and no one knows who is next. Rural elders hold a detached attitude toward death; for them, the ancestral burial ground is their final resting place, and there will always be a spot for them in the family ancestral hall—that is enough. The old do not fear death; they fear having no descendants.

My late mentor once told me that parents are like a wall, holding back the god of death for us. When the parents leave, that wall collapses; then we ourselves become that wall, holding back death for our descendants.

When I go home and my sister's son, my brother-in-law's and sister-in-law's children gather around me, I look at this younger generation and romp and laugh with them like a children's ringleader, completely unlike an elder—one of those the ancients called "looking not like a father." My child's heart is still there, except that I have, fully and truly, become a wall behind them, to shield them from wind and rain and from death's threat. My father-in-law's entrustment of me was probably precisely this: that I become such a wall for my family.

After years of suffering in turmoil, I finally walked out of my psychological shadow and began to learn from my father-in-law's and my father's broad-minded attitude toward death. At the same time, I now cherish this body and every moment of this life, because I know that as a wall I have not yet finished my duty, and I am not yet entitled to fall or to stand still.

A person goes through several weaning periods in life; this may be my last. Decades from now I may also return to my hometown and, like my father and father-in-law, quietly await the coming of death. If then I can, like my father-in-law, pass away with a smile, that will be the best possible ending.