Mourning Mother ⁽⁷⁾

The school had to register student status and create student files; in the section for important family members, information on parents and other close relatives had to be entered. When I filled in my mother's information, in the "details" column I wrote the words "deceased."…

October 18th, Saturday. I came home from school. That night as I slept at home, I had a dream - I dreamed of my mother again. This dream was basically similar to the two in September: still the scene of my mother struggling in pain…

In September, I dreamed of my mother twice, both times while sleeping in the school dormitory. Both dreams were the same: the scene of the final farewell between mother and son at her deathbed. When I woke up, my heart was still filled with grief.

Between Kunming Lake in the Summer Palace and Bayi Lake in Yuyuantan there is a jade-belt-like river about ten kilometers long: that is the Kunyu River. The Kunyu River is part of the Jingmi Diversion Canal, which supplies drinking water to the residents of Beijing,…

Midlife is a journey from pain to meaning. — James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life Before the Qingming Festival in 2012, I returned to my hometown to care for my mother in her final days. By then she had entered the…

When I proposed marriage for the first time, I was rejected. After returning home, I lay face-down on the bed, covered my head with the quilt, and wept bitterly. My mother sat by the bed, stroking me and comforting me. She said: “My son! If…

A note: this is an essay I wrote in 2012, a little over a month before my mother's death. Today, for certain reasons, I happened to reread it; after reading I fell into long thought. I have decided to repost the original essay as it…