Chinese Version
05-09-2018

My material grandmother died of illness in the 1940s, when my mother was less than 14 years old. This is the story of the grandmother I know.

My mother often cried “Mother, Mother” when she was under a lot of unbearable pain in the hospital in her early stage of Alzheimers. This is the story of my mother and grandmother.

My maternal grandmother, her son, her daughter-in-law, and her grandson.

Looking at the photo of my grandmother that was kept by my late mother, I thought about my mother, in the pain with early stage Alzheimers, calling for her mother who had left her for more than 70 years and I was very much touched. I guessed that in my mother’s memory there must a very special place which kept her love for her mother and the silent memory awakened the long-lost mother’s love which she enjoyed in her childhood, on many occasions. I guess my mother had a strong desire to return to the primitive and simple past life close to her mother.

I also thought about my mother and my grandmother’s life span and their children, which made me feel good. My middle-aged grandmother who died of illness left behind two underaged daughters (my mother and aunt). But my own very ill mother lived to 89-years-old and died peacefully with the people who loved her very much beside her and with her three grandchildren all over the age of 18. In our family story, two generations of mothers, the younger generation lived longer than the older, so I can clearly see progress in our family.

After frequently thinking about my late mother and my late grandmother whom I never had a chance to meet, I felt that living a good life is my best way to remember and admire my mother and my grandmother in this life.

Death is not farewell, forgetting is, as Hector in the “Coco” movie said: “If there’s no one left in the living world to remember you, you disappear from this world.”

Little Episodes

1. My Mother when she was young.

Lei, one of my close college classmates (We climbed Emei Mountain together in 1984), said: “several years ago, I read an article saying that many people will call their mother before they pass away. Several years later, when my father died, his consciousness was not clear, but he clearly called his mother (although he had been away from his mother for nearly 60 years). Maybe the life given by his mother will eventually return to his mother, and they will still have a mother and child relationship in the next life.”

Xun, one of my high school classmates, commented: “Yes! Death is not farewell, forgetting is! Our late beloved ones are always in our thoughts and spirits!”

One of my high school alumni said, “Our beloved ones will always look at us in heaven and bless us. I firmly believe that the spirit of them will always inspire us. Living well is the best way to remember them!”