Jason | F

December 14, 2021

I wake up at noon, and as long as I have nothing to do in the morning, I can sleep until I wake up naturally. I am really idle recently. Due to the epidemic, there are almost no hiking guests. I receive one or two inquiries a week, and they may not be booked in the end, so there is generally nothing to do.

I opened WeChat and received quite a few orders for local specialties from eatwith. I made a cup of black coffee, sat on the sofa, and turned on the heater. In Dali, winter is bright and warm when there is sunshine. If there is no sunshine, the house will feel cold. I filled out the forms one by one on the app, which took some time to check carefully. After the restaurant closed, I had no income because I was not hiking. I started to make some local specialties from Yunnan. The main sources of goods were fruits from the orchard and Yunnan mountain products from Luo Tingwen. I sold them and they were responsible for shipping. It was WeChat business. In the simplest case, I only needed a link and a simple introduction. Apart from that, I didn’t need to do anything. The prices of their products were very fair, and I didn’t raise the price. I wanted to do it as a long-term business. It was like opening a cigarette and paper shop. People would come to buy when they needed it on a daily basis. Most of the customers were my hiking guests. They had hiked with me before and had some trust in me. There were also many old friends of mine. I knew that most of them were looking out for me, so I placed orders to buy. The products were good and the prices were fair. Being a WeChat business was part of making a living, and I thought it was pretty good.

It was almost two o'clock. I drove to F's residence in the southern part of the courtyard. I had an appointment to go to the clinic for acupuncture today. About three weeks ago, I suddenly learned that he had a health problem. A friend brought him back to Dali from Tibet. He ran an inn there. The hospital examination showed that he had a brain tumor. The doctor did not recommend surgery, and it would not work. I checked the information. Generally speaking, there is not much time left. I knew F in Shanghai. More than ten years ago, we were both in an outdoor club and met once. Later, he also came to Dali. Because he met his ex-wife in Tibet, he moved here. Gradually, we became a little familiar, but in fact, we didn't have much contact. We didn't have a meal or a cup of coffee alone. However, I have a good impression of him. Roughly speaking, he is the kind of person who has not changed much after many years. He may have experienced a lot of things and changes, but he is still sincere and maintains his sense of self. When interacting with people, his mind is simple. We played football together. He played football with a certain artistry. He was tall and passed the ball lightly when attacking, making his teammates receive it comfortably. When defending, he was a general. He has no prejudice against teammates’ skills. He will give you the ball when you are in the right position, even if he knows you can’t get it right. F also gets very angry sometimes, when someone doesn’t play football seriously or cheats. His attitude towards playing football is probably his attitude in normal times. Last year, he came to Dali to spend the winter. Since there were no guests in the Tibetan inn during the winter, he lived on my second floor for three months, so we became more familiar with each other. However, he would go out to play shuttlecock, frisbee, and board games with friends all day, and we didn’t eat or chat together. I was the one who took care of his two dogs, Wukong and Alai. Last year, there were quite a lot of hiking guests, so I often took them to the mountains. At that time, Harry Nuomi was still there, and the four dogs were very powerful.

F has now contracted this disease and has quickly become bedridden and physically weak. The first time I visited him, he was still able to speak a few words and even go out for a meal with help. A week later, he could no longer speak or walk. In part, he didn’t want to talk, and he didn’t want his friends to visit him.

His residence is very close to Guanyintang, in a new residential area. I stopped by the roadside outside the yard, and Yaoyao said that F was still taking a nap. When I first learned that F fell ill, Master Deng, who took him to the hospital, told me that F was now bedridden in a nearby inn and did not want to see his friends. The person who is taking care of him now is a girl who brought her child from another place to take care of him. It is difficult for me to imagine such a scene. It is not easy for a woman to take care of a child alone, and she also has to take care of a big man who is bedridden. I don't know her, so I can only imagine a picture based on my imagination, which is not very beautiful. I was not mentally prepared, I didn't know what to say, and I didn't go to see F. After a few days, Master Deng said that it would be better to go and see F and talk to him, and maybe F would be more optimistic.

That day, I found the inn. F was in a room on the third floor. My feet were still swollen and red. I had to use crutches to get up there. It was a bad time. I had to change diapers, so I delayed the matter by going in. The room was a standard room with two mattresses on the tatami. There was also a fat cat in the room, brought by the mother and daughter. F looked haggard. We talked a few words, just to make small talk. He always stopped talking halfway. I brought Wukong with me, but it didn't seem to recognize F and had no intention of going to him. Yaoyao sat on the bed next to me. She was a little wary and uneasy. Of course, she didn't know me and didn't understand me. She also knew that F didn't want to see anyone. I was an uninvited guest who came to his house on my own. It was the first time I met her. I knew at first glance that she was a quick and capable woman. She knew very little about me, and although I knew nothing about her, I was able to come from somewhere else and take care of a friend in such a situation and take on this difficult task. The friendship between them is beyond description.

It's not the atmosphere for long sitting, so I quickly left.

When I went to see F for the second time, Yaoyao had already rented a small courtyard and hired a caregiver. We had also chatted several times on WeChat and became familiar with each other. That day I brought salted pork and vegetable rice with Xiaonuo and Shuhui. The new house was clean and spacious with three rooms. Yaoyao's daughter Bailebao was lively and called F a handsome boy and played with him. She didn't treat F as a patient. Yaoyao talked to F while feeding him, very gently, like a child. F declined very quickly, his cheeks were sunken, he could hardly speak, and it was difficult to lift his head. He could only communicate by looking at each other, and his eyes were lifeless. Xiaonuo and Shuhui couldn't accept such a huge change and couldn't hold back their tears. When F left Dali and returned to Tibet last year, he had his last meal at their house, and they packed food for F to take on the road. They were both friends and like a younger brother who needed care, even though F was older than them.

This place already feels like a home, with a cheerful atmosphere. Yaoyao has a kind of strength that can hold up the sky and take care of F. To be able to do what we have now, it takes not only friendship but also strength. Finding a good yard, a caregiver, moving, settling F, buying various supplies, many things require Zhou Xiang's planning. After F's condition was diagnosed, the doctor said he was powerless, and his friends found his brother and wanted to send F back to Shanghai. His brother only had a blood relationship and the relationship was not close. F didn't want to go back to Shanghai, so he called Yaoyao in the hospital. I think this must be the person he trusts the most, because F is a person who doesn't want to trouble his friends.

May 2, 2022

When I woke up, I checked my phone. It was not yet seven o'clock. I slept for five hours and felt very awake. I got up and went to the living room next door to make a cup of black coffee. It was very simple. I boiled some water, poured some of the coffee powder I brought into a stainless steel filter cup, and poured in boiling water. This filter cup was free. When he stayed at my house during the Spring Festival last year, he saw me making coffee like this, without the need for filter paper. I thought it was really simple and easy to use, so I bought one too. This is the one I am using now. He bought it for Yaoyao.

In the next room, Yaoyao and Bailebao were still asleep. Two days ago, Free passed away, and the next day several friends sent him off for cremation. The day's caregiver, Master Li, also left with his suitcase. On the way back, Yaoyao asked me to stay over for a few days, until the seventh day. She found a house nearby and planned to stay there until the 49th day, as Free's last companion.

When the funeral home car came to pick him up, Master Deng, Jiangcuo, Master Li and I carried Free to the car. His condition had subsided and he was in good condition. I was calm. Generally speaking, physical death itself is not easy to be moved. Moreover, for Free, leaving at this time was a relief. When the bag was finally closed, Old Deng took out a rattan ball wrapped in paper and placed it next to Free. Suddenly, I felt sad. The person who had passed away in front of me returned to his youth. He loved playing football, shuttlecock, rattan ball, and board games, and he was good at them. Life has gone through many changes, and he has been home all over the world. He is happy, frustrated, and confused. No matter what, he still enjoys playing these games. I also remembered the touch in my heart when Honghong put the small bowls and toys of Nuomi Harry next to him before he was buried last year.

Looking back at the records of these years, they are all the things around me leaving. Only at such times, it touches the heart. If it is just a life relocation, even if you go to a faraway place for work, life and travel, in this era of the Internet, it is not really leaving.

While waiting for cremation at the funeral home, I suddenly thought that Free was the first generation of people who could choose where to live and where to die. In the past, people who died in a foreign land were often not willing to do so, and they were often officials or businessmen. It was not because of work arrangements.