EPTWhat is it like to go? He cannot tell me, for he's went.
Looking back, I barely know the man, for the most part, he kept to himself, in his room.
During the year I lived with him, Every morning, he'd wake up way early and walk in the garden outside, hand behind his back, walking very slowly. I do not recall him ever using a cane., When I wake up, he'd already be taking his noon nap.
He talked little, and spend most of his time tending flowers on the balcony, and, if he had the strength, go walk in the park with grandma, or maybe go fishing,,
I remember once when he was trying to make his own fertilizers out of soy beans, he fermented them in a bottle, but the pressure got too big, the bottle blew up, and spewing nasty rotten beans all over the balcony. The rooms smelled horrid for days.
And I thought, he's not as boring as I make him...
I remember the younger times, when I was still little, when he still can move about.
We'd sometimes go fishing, it was great time when he used my bait of a grasshopper I caught, and got a fish out of it.
I also remember him helping me dragging out a huge carp that was literally pulling me into the pond.
But for the most part, he's just an old, quiet man in his room, wearing reading glasses and reading newspapers and fanning himself with a fan probably as old as himself.
Last year, when I went back to China, he said to me, he said "Yewen, this is probably the last time you'll see me alive"
I did not know how to respond to that, I just laughed and replied "Don't say that!"
But the old man was right
He also gave me scrolls of calligraphies, probably the last he's ever worked on. The lines were straight, the drops were even, the "Li" font that's famous for their straight spines and firm statures. The characters stand on the paper.
I read it, it was about the advances of China in the past decades, it was full of hope
"For your father", he said, "had to do them while I still can move"
Two months ago got a call from China, say that he's in the hospital, say that he's got internal bleeding, coughing up blood.
My cousin told me, he might be old, but he's not senile and dim. He's always clear, so clear about himself, he knows, he's been saying this for a long while.
He didn't go then. He hanged on for my dad to see him.
Dad went back to China, when I called him, he said "this guy's memory is so damn good, he remembers everything"
Maybe he did not speak much, he took in more, I'll never find out.
Dad also told me that old man's been complaining, saying there's no point testing his blood, he says "What is the point testing my blood, this isn't even my blood anymore, it's all other people's blood".
He lost so much blood, at least ten people's blood has ran through him, but his platelet's were too low, so it never stopped bleeding.
But then it all got better, or we thought.
He stopped bleeding, but he never made it out of the hospital. For the past two months, nothing happend... I should've called him, talked to him, he'd probably want to talk to his only grandson, for I bear his name. Now I'll never... well...
Yesterday mom called, and say that there was another huge break out, and that he lost too much blood, and that the old man's went, and that dad is going to China already,.
I did not know how to feel.
What do I know of that old man?
Very little, that's for sure.
I do remember though, that when I showed him a game I was playing, beachhead, he happily pointed out that the huge airplanes that's hurling bombs at my bunker was B-52, he had worked in the airforce then.
I also remember, although I'd forgotten the occasion, that he was serious, and he told me that, "You can be smart all you like, but above all, you gotta know how to stand straight, you gotta know how to be a man."
Of that, I'd never forget.
