The Vanished Joy of Family Togetherness
Counting today, I have been in my hometown for five days, the longest stay I have had here during summer vacations in recent years. In the past, I always rushed back and rushed away again for work reasons. This time I only want to keep my elderly father company; our family's return has also added much joy to his life. According to the original plan, I will stay in my hometown for another three or four days, and I want to stay out the full number of days planned. Next summer vacation, I will have to begin my Western-medicine clinical internship in a hospital and will have no chance to come back and keep my father company.
Rural elderly today are generally in the state my father is in: no children long by their side, no longer able to enjoy the joys of family life as their own parents did. But compared with urban elderly, their situation may actually be a little better, because around them are many peers they have known for years—among them many siblings and various in-laws.
Not long ago I read on Zhihu a middle-aged Beijinger describing how his parents and parents-in-law were being cared for in Beijing: four elderly people, all professors at universities before retirement; three of them now live in expensive nursing homes. The greatest wish of the elderly is to live together in a nursing home with people they know, but this wish is hard to realize. There are always all sorts of reasons that force them to adapt to a completely unfamiliar environment, and as people age, their ability to adapt to new surroundings is generally poor, so they are not happy.
When I was a child, there were about ten of us cousins, all looked after by our grandparents, who truly lived the life of "children and grandchildren gathered around their knees, enjoying candy with the little ones." My grandfather loved bribing us with a small piece of rock sugar, and my grandmother liked tempting me with snacks to teach her to recite scriptures. Whenever the elderly had a headache or fever, they had four sons by their side to care for them.
Compared with them, the elderly of my father's generation are truly rather pitiable. Before summer vacation, my father called and asked me to bring my son home to stay a few more days, saying he missed his grandson. My father is nearly eighty; who knows which day he might suddenly pass away, so of course I must grant him this wish. But my son has not grown up by his grandfather's side long-term and cannot be as close to him as I was to my grandparents, so the family joy my father can experience is, after all, limited.
The good thing is that I can still patiently keep my father company, listening to him repeat old stories or grievances over and over, and buying him all sorts of things to make his life more convenient. I am nearly fifty myself; I know both the mandate of heaven and the harmony of the ear, and I do not contradict a word my father says, whether pleasant or unpleasant. When people grow old, their emotions need an outlet. I am away from him most of the year and can only communicate by remote video call; I owe him too much, and taking time off to make up for it is only right.
Previously, reading a book on naturopathy by an American doctor, I came across his mention of an idealistic American physician who, when running a nursing home, let staff bring their children in to keep the elderly entertained. This single measure reduced the elderly's medication use by more than half, with even more obvious therapeutic effect. It shows that many geriatric conditions respond well simply to the joy of family togetherness. Yet our so-called modern civilization has stripped the elderly of the family joy they ought to enjoy; it is hard to say whether this is progress or decline of civilization.
On this trip back, I bought my father a new, lightweight electric bicycle to replace the electric motorcycle he had been using. The old electric motorcycle was terribly heavy, with a top speed of up to 45 km/h; my father often rode it for pleasure rides, and I felt uneasy, constantly worrying he would have an accident.
When buying, I deliberately chose the best-quality, lightest model, with speed kept within the national standard (maximum 25 km/h). I know my father cannot stop going out and about; some of his social ties are in neighboring villages and towns. Lacking family joy, he cannot also lose these social networks, or his old age would have no joy at all.
I now deal with families of many elderly patients, and at times I wonder sincerely whether the medical help we provide these elderly patients is worth as much as the companionship of their children. I also genuinely question whether our modern narratives about how people ought to live and about medicine are truly reasonable.
Time in the countryside moves slowly. After nightfall there is no light pollution and no noise pollution; in such an environment sleep quality is high and the whole spirit is good. My father indeed lives better here in the countryside than in the city. He has a psychological aversion to coming back to Beijing with me, and I cannot force him. But this also means I cannot be by his side long-term to fulfill filial duty; I can only occasionally take time off like now to come back and keep him company, giving him some emotional compensation—though it is negligible compared with the family spiritual support he should receive.
This is the shared regret of most people of my generation. I earnestly hope such a state will not be passed from generation to generation; social development should not come at the cost of people's spiritual support.