“You’re crying too soon. I’m not dead yet.”
That simple line takes almost all your strength to push out, each word catching on the edge of your breath. But even in weakness, you are commanding.
I’ve always lived under your giant wings. No matter how hard I fall, I’ve always known I’d have somewhere soft to land. For a long time, I thought it was a cage you were luring me into, the life you’d lived, the path you’d walked, the expectations I was so scared to repeat. I wonder how it must feel, knowing that the care meant to protect me once felt like nothing but a chain.
I’ve always wanted to grow my own wings and see how high I could fly. You’ve always feared I’d only be flying toward the fire. I thought you wanted to dim my light when you were just afraid the world would burn me for shining too bright.
Now, your body looks as light as a feather, so fragile that even a deep breath from me feels like it could blow your life away.
Growing up, we thought the adults who raised us held all the power. They made the rules, decided our routines, and shaped the world we thought we knew. They were the giants in our lives. They cast a long shadow when they walked, and we lived beneath them.
My grandmother thought the world was full of little dangers. She never let me into the kitchen or near the sink. She’d always find a reason that I was too young, too careless, too likely to hurt myself. This was her way of loving me, or the only way she knew how.
She couldn’t read more than ten words, including her own name. And yet, with those few words, she built an entire life, navigated a world that was never built for her, and somehow managed to raise me to believe I could read them all.
Maybe that’s where my hunger for learning began. Getting into a good university had always been my goal, as if I were trying to rewrite the story you were never allowed to live.
I met up with one of my former bosses in London after getting my second degree, and she said to me:
“You always said you wanted to study.”
I was surprised that my thirst for education was so obvious to others. Maybe because even during job interviews, I’d ask if there might be a chance for sponsorship to continue my studies.
That thirst for education might have seemed irrational to those who never felt it, but I’ve come to believe that education is the one investment in yourself that never depreciates.
“You’re the biggest hustler I’ve ever met in my life.”
My friends could see that instinct in me, that restless urge to want more and go after it. But maybe that wanting was my way of carrying you forward. The wings you once used to shelter me, I now use to lift us both.
All those years I spent chasing after a shinier life, running from one dopamine hit to the next, and now I’m here, in a room far from all that noise, holding your hand.
For the first time, I’m praying to all the ancestors you worshipped: Please ease her pain. Please share her pain with me.
If I could, I’d trade my living years for just a few more with you.
It’s those wings that have pulled me from storms, carried me through the darkness, and sheltered me when I couldn’t see the way forward. They lifted me when I no longer had the strength to rise.
You were there for every beginning: the first steps, the first falls, the first dreams I ever dared to chase.
How am I supposed to fly alone? How can I beg time to give me more time?
I keep grabbing the nurse, asking for predictions, as if this were a problem I could solve. What symptoms? How many days? But all I’m left with are unknown variables.
A woman right beside us shouts at me for accidentally pulling the curtain she needs. I apologize, but she keeps going, her voice sharp enough that others in the room begin exchanging sympathetic glances with me. My grandmother later reaches out, grabs the nurse’s hand, and says,
“I’m from the Liu clan, married into the Tang clan.”
The nurse smiles and says:
“You’ve got the two greatest clans with you.”
Even at your weakest, you’re still trying to protect me. That protection comes from all you’ve devoted your life to, the family name, the rituals, the songs that echo through time.
The bridal lament was full of sorrow, a grief that mourned the moment a woman’s freedom turned into duty. You live by duty so I can live by choice. And perhaps the truest choice I can make is to carry your duty forward as my own.