News from Home
Mother and Wen in Changchun, China
I can always tell my mother’s mood from her voice each time she picks up the phone. Mother is eighty-one and has been suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes, and irregular heart beat. After Father passed away last September, my sister Ping invited Mother to live with her for seven months. Mother returned home with the arrival of spring. “I always feel your father is waiting for me at home,” she said before returning to Changchun where she had lived for the last 25 years.
The transition home has not been easy. Luckily, my sister Yan and her husband moved home to care for her. And my sister Wen, a doctor, lives two flights up in the same building. Wen comes downstairs to spend a couple of hours with Mother every evening. Mother loves to have her adult children around her.
Mother was tough and strong when my siblings and I were children, but she changed substantially when she became a grandmother. Now she could easily be emotional, to the point of almost sentimental.
“What’s matter, Mother?” I asked when I heard her lower than usual tone.
“My blood pressure went up to 190 today,” she said. “I felt dizzy and didn’t go out for a walk.”
At my request, Mother revealed that Ms. Wang, her walking companion and friend who lived in the same neighborhood, suddenly passed away. Mother was saddened by the news.
“We took a walk together the day before,” she said. “Then she was gone. Just like that,” Mother’s voice chocked.
Wen took over the phone and told me in a lower voice that Mrs. Wang returned home after her routine walk and collapsed when she was about to open her front door. She was eighty-four. By the time someone found her lying on the floor, she was long gone.
“Yan and I took Mother to a flower show today,” she said. “We wanted to distract her and lighten up her mood a little bit.”
I’m grateful that my sisters are extremely caring and giving when it comes to take care of our parents. For three years during Father’s fight with lung cancer, they took turns to be with him day and night—he never spent a single day by himself, either at home or in the hospital. Now they are giving the same love and care to Mother.
There is hardly any word one can say when faced with a sudden death.
“Take good care of yourself, Mother,” I said, feeling my words weak and useless. “The best way of dealing with such a loss is to cherish and appreciate each day,” I continued, making the point to her and to myself.
Jian Ping, author of Mulberry Child: A Memoir of China. www.mulberrychild.com.
Tags: care for parents, Changchun, China
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