February 28, 2009

I buried myself on a desk with books and data, got a headache while calculated out the progressive returns on stock options.

The desk vibrated, I flipped over the phone out of a pile of the draft papers, my mother calls.

“Your Father's examination results have come out. About two-thirds of his stomach has to be removed.”

I stopped the writing: “Our Accounting Professor who suffered stomach cancer just needed to cut one-half, Teacher Lin that only suffered from gastric ulcer need to cut two-thirds?” Although my brain had been messed up by large numbers, I remained highly sensitive to this new-mentioned number.

“The surgery is scheduled for Monday. You come home tomorrow, I will tell you what things to bring here in a moment. On Monday morning, your father's office will send a car, you can come here with the car.”

Then in my hesitant, I sounded ‘oh'. Mother simply hung up the call.

At that time, I was like any other senior year university students who revised his graduation thesis, wrapped in a down-filled jacket, with grief and blankly expression.

‘Teacher Lin' was my father, a senior political expert. He was a person who took things philosophically. He had a history of stomach disease for 25 years. During the Spring Festival, he suffered from anorexia and only ate a little food. My mother and I escorted him to X City to do an examination. In the previous examination, I got the information that he has gastric ulcer erosion, accompanied by gastric perforation.

People always had intuition and instinct for bad things. For example, “two-thirds” resembled the needle and stitch. In a short while, it will cut and open all kinds of previous unusual memory for my parents.

(two-thirds [三分之二] = the pinyin literary resembles stitches of a needle on cloth.)

March 2, 2009

When the car stopped in front of the cancer hospital, I started to feel like my head was covered tightly by the glass cover. Seven years ago, after the high school entrance examination, I was also sent here, that time because of the grandmother's end-stage nasopharyngeal cancer.

Father's younger brother came to pick us up, he put his hand on my shoulder, “The operation started at 8 o'clock. Your mother – wanted to keep it from you, I didn't agree. You have to know about this. If you feel sad, you can cry it out now. But don't let your mom see it later.”

I bowed my head, quickly wiped away the tears on my face.

At the last row in the family waiting area.
I cleared my throat and put down my backpack, “Comrade, you did very well in keeping secret. How long have you keep it from me?” I sat down and took out a slice of bread from the bag.

(Comrade [同志] = literally meaning;(people with) the same spirit, goal, ambition.  why she and her father are calling her mother this is yet to be explained.)

“What are you doing?” She apparently couldn't accept my calm response.

“I haven't finished my breakfast.” My nerves and heart had been hardened for many years due to the ups and downs in my life. Now, I've become stronger and calmer. “Do you want some?”

Mother observed my facial expression from my side, “You already know about everything.”

“If the car stopped at the military academy, maybe you can lie a little bit more.”

Mother sighed, her eyes were starting to become red.

I reached out and touched her back. “What did ‘Teacher Lin' say? Female comrades' heart quality isn't generally good if she ran into this kind of matter she will easily panic.”

My mother turned around and looked at me: “You don't know. Your father is taking a knife on his stomach, he must be hurting so much.”

I handed over a bar of chocolate: “You gave birth to me with a cesarean section, you also took a knife to your stomach. But now, you look fine.”

I haven't finished eating the two pieces of bread, I heard someone shouting : “Stomach surgery on Bed-39, Lin XX.” I rush there.

At the corridor entrance, there was the row of operating rooms, a doctor in a surgical gown was holding a stainless steel bowl in his hand: “This is the part we cut out.”

Then, my mother came to see the thing in the bowl. She was surprised, closed her eyes and turned around.

I stepped forward and carefully looked at the bowl of red and white flesh, as big as my palm, freshly cut out from Teacher Lin. Suddenly feel inexplicably sad and close. I come forward, close enough to smell, there was no bloody iron taste as in my imagined, only the light smell of disinfectant.

“The tumor's position was relatively high, the dissection position is higher than expected, leaving around 20% of his stomach.”

I nodded. The other party turned around and went in.

That was my first meeting with the doctor. Forgive me to not remembering deeply about it — he was covered up tightly with a surgical mask.

At 12 o'clock, Teacher Lin was pushed back to the ward, when we were going to lift him and move the other bed in the ward, the nurse stopped us. “Let the Male Comrades lift him, the two of you won't able to do it.”

My mother and I looked at each other, we were only two female comrades here. Father's younger brother already rushed back because something happened in the company, where can we find two men?

The nurse looked at us helplessly and said: “I will help you, you can find another one. You can look at the patient room next door, maybe they have a son.” I had no choice but to go out and ask for help.

At that time, the doctor just returned from the operating room. He hasn't even taken off his surgical mask yet and planned to have a shower then go to eat. He bumped into me when he went through the door of the ward, looked at ward room number: “Bed 39, what happened?”

I said: “Doctor, could you do me a favor?”

The Doctor answered. An ill-fated relationship, everything began from here.