Just as mentioned above, my old father died after the spring festival of 2005, solar year on Feb. 18, the tenth of the first lunar month, 91 years old. At that time, mother also reached the age of 90, but she was healthy and insisted on living alone and did all herself. Meilan Zhang and I had to go to Australia to look after our grandson, Wuyang Song (English name: Peter Song) and we left enough money for her to live. I phoned her about once every month, discovering that her emotion began to fluctuate. Living alone made her unenergetic, lonely and bored. As time went on, she became almost blind, only one eye being able to see something in a neither bright nor dim light. The other eye became almost blind. As a result, she could not cook for herself. However, she was not willing to eat in sons’ or daughter’s home in turn. Early in their sixties, parents were afraid of eating in sons’ or daughters’ home in turn, now the days came in the end.
We brothers and sisters talked several times and drew the conclusion that her depending on one person, i.e. eating in one home, was not a good method. In order to avoid asking mother to go to sons’ or daughters’ home, we came to mother’s home instead. When whose turn came, his or her family cooked in mother’s house. Mother had the strong will that she should be supported by sons rather than daughters because they, including father, had not given anything to daughters. Houses had been given to the first and third son and afford the second son, me, to go to middle school and university. That daughters did washing is enough. I tried to balance our duty and arrange for sons to cook in mother’s house 9 months and daughters three months.
Mother was afraid of troubling others all her life and now she aged and had to rely on others, her mind burden being very heavy, and accusing herself of living too long. She wished to die earlier so that all of us lived peacefully. We talked about how to take turns to look after her, resulting in different opinions, and sometimes sons’ voice sounded loudly, which made her very anxious. I tried hard to persuade her not to blame herself, saying that her long life was our wish. We sons and daughters were not the most filial, at least, fairly filial, all of us accepting the task actively when it was his or her turn.
Old mother could not be made happy any more. Calling back the evening when I married Meilan Zhang, she was most excited. She thought that this daughter-in-law came without any betrothal gift. Usually, when talking about sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, she felt very proud. Typically, she was living a happy life because of a lot of descendants. So large a family, the total number reached more than 50. Now, we had no method to make her happy again. All the day she frowned. Liangliang Song and Lei Meng came from the US and spent a lot buying her a wheelchair. All of us praised them as filial grandson and granddaughter-in-law, however old granny could still not be made happy. When we asked her to sit in the wheelchair and pulled her on the highway, letting her see something outside, she opposed strongly, saying that she was so old and looked ugly and could not be seen by others.
portrait of Yan Caizhi
Mother used to be a very courtesy woman, who would rather take trouble looking after or entertaining than troubling others. Even in her own sons’ or daughters’ home, she always said “thank you”. Such characteristics made her have a heavy mind load. The more she troubles others, the more willing she was to die earlier. She didn’t want to live any more but she had to, afraid of the sons’ or daughters’ reputation ruined.
Old mother was a straight-forward person and said what she thought. I believe that a lot of old people have such a feeling. Troubling others is a completely uncomfortable thing. When one cannot do what s/he should in order to live, he or she will naturally produce such a thought. We should not blame her for her behavior. Freud was a famous Austrian psychologist and put forward his theory of the death instinct in his old age. The death instinct is a power promoting human-being to return to the condition of non-life. Death is the end of life and the final steady state of life, only in which can it stop struggling for physiological desire. Only at this moment is the life no longer anxious and worried. Therefore, the destination of life is death. Reading such words written by the wit I was not surprised at the instinct behavior before the end of her life and thought of her courage in face of the death as natural and reasonable.
Old mother took great care of all her children, including her own 6 and 13 of her grandchildren, esp. my family. One of her little finger was bent and could not stretch straight, which was a sign of her and was a scar left as a result of saving me. According to her memory, when I was 3 years old, there were crowds of people and carts in front of our small store because a Buddhist ceremony was being held. I was knocked down and about to be pressed by a carriage. Mother showed her courage to save me, but one of her little finger was pressed by the wheel and became and remained bent. She forgot herself and saved me bravely, otherwise I would have been pressed and become an injured all my life. My two sons lived by their grandparents until they were old enough to go to school.
It lasted 44 years for parents to bring up us six children. The first son was born in 1937 and the smallest girl married in 1981, the parents experiencing the eight-year Anti-Japanese War, three-year civil war, the period of leftism after the liberation, three-year disaster caused by nature and policy and later the ten-year cultural revolution. It could be said that they had lived no happy life during the long period, with mind scared and frightened and pockets having no money in them. The family obeyed the law and did not suffer big setbacks and tragedies, which was associated with mother’s attitude toward the reality.
We six brothers and sisters have cultivated good virtue of diligence and simplicity and we unite with and love each other. The family atmosphere is pleasant and welcoming. Old mother often told us to be modest and friendly to others. Putting up with others did not mean fool and suffering losses was a kind of happiness. What she repeated was that if someone spit in your face, you wash yourself, which could avoid the disaster. I pursue my study for my whole life and when I met trouble with someone I have tolerance and patience, which come from the influence of mother.
All of us sons and daughters, including sons and daughters-in-law, hold the view that if mother had not blamed herself for her long life, she would have lived longer. If she could live to 100, it was a proud of the whole family. It was a pity that she left us at 5 am, on Feb 17 of 2010, ie. the 4th, the first month of the lunar year, 95 years old and nothing could resist her power of her own consciousness. Every time when we remember her, we missed her very much.
Dec. 26 of 2011 in Chicago
Proofreading on May 2 of 2012 in Xuzhou
Second proofreading on Jan 2 2019 in Fenghuayuan
Uploading on Aug. 8 of 2023 in Xuzhou
