After I wished Aunty Tang a happy Chinese New Year, she committed suicide.
She fed me candy and held my hand in her living room during the visit. In her Shandong province Chinese accent, she constantly told me how I was such a good boy. About how none of her daughters loved her. About how of all the neighbors, I was the only one who cared. About how nobody in all of Jinan loved her. Nobody loved her. She had no true family.
She drank the poison right after I left her house. The other children and I were knocking on Sister Fei’s door to wish her a happy Chinese New Year too when the shouts began to travel down the street like the western wind: “Old Tang is dead! Old Tang is dead!”
For the next 14 days of Chinese New Year, Aunty Tang was all the people would talk about. That “old witch who just couldn’t wait until the end of the festivities to die.” Her name was the opening topic of every conversation. She was no longer a person. She was news. And then, after the 14 days, people stopped mentioning her. That’s when she truly died.
But my 8 year old mind remembered her. I remembered how sweet the candy tasted before she died and how bitter everything else tasted afterwards.

That was 35 years ago. The streets of Jinan are now congested with cars, like clogged arteries leaving the heart. The Chinese New Year of today is celebrated with fewer fire crackers and with more divided families. Most of my childhood friends have moved out of our small neighborhood to Beijing, or America, to pursue their dreams. Much has changed, but I have managed to remain in this neighborhood.
Where Aunty Tang’s apartment building used to be, there is now a senior home. I walk by it as I return home from work every day, and when I do, I can’t help but imagine Aunty Tang sitting on the front porch waving at me, calling me into her home for some tea, some love.
But two weeks ago, I saw a different person in front of the senior home, and it wasn’t my imagination. A shriveled old lady in a wheelchair with erect posture, rotating her head side to side, as if she were looking for something in the distance. A senior home attendant in a starched baby blue shirt stood next to her, holding an umbrella over her silver capped head.
From out the window of my bedroom, I saw the attendant wheel the old woman back into the home as soon as the humid air began to fill with the voices of the night. She remained perfectly still as she was swallowed into the faint light of the home.
When I woke up the next morning, she was outside once more. The attendant had changed, as did the color of the umbrella, but she had not. She still sat in her wheelchair as if it were her royal throne. Her squinted eyes still had an edge of focus in whatever she was looking for. Like the day before, she remained rooted outside until she was once again wheeled back into the home after night fell.
It has been 2 weeks since I first saw her establish her post at the front of the senior home. After she was wheeled into the home for the 14th time last night, I went into the senior home and inquired the front desk attendants for what they knew about the old lady who sat outside every day.
“Old Wang?” the young man at the table responded bitterly, clearly ready to head home for the night. “Yes, she’s the reason why I had to stand out in the pouring rain yesterday just to keep her dry. I caught a cold because of her.”
“Why does she sit outside?” I asked.
“She’s waiting for her son, Chun,” he responded, wiping his nose with a tissue. “Waiting and waiting and waiting for him to pay her a visit. She insists that she sit outside so that he will be able to find her. None of us here have the heart to tell her that her son isn’t coming for her. He’s moved on with his life. I’m pretty sure she’s half crazy, man. The last senior home couldn’t handle her and so they transferred her here.”
But I knew she wasn’t crazy. Her eyes did not portray insanity, they portrayed hope. The same hope that Aunty Tang had before she was lost forever.

Today will be the day. My son will come today. My little Chun. I have waited too long.
The sun is so hot. Just yesterday it was raining. Oh how quickly things are changing.
Remember when you were a boy? Remember when I taught you about Confucius? And about filial piety? About caring for one’s parents?
You smiled at me and said “Of course mommy. I will care for you once I am older, just like how you always cared for me.”
And I smiled back and said “Easier said than done.”
But I knew you actually would. I know you actually will.
I hope to see you today.

Old Wang is indeed old. She is as old as Aunty Tang would be if she were still alive.
I just got off work. I am walking home, only this time, instead of walking past the senior home, I walk towards it. Towards Old Wang.
As I approach, I see the umbrella bearing attendant with a cold from the night before suspiciously raise an eyebrow at me. Old Wang looks even smaller up close. She squints at me, and I can only hope that her eyesight is as poor as it should be at her age.
“Mama,” I say as I kneel down. “I’m here to visit you.”
Her eyes widen and I see my reflection in her eyes. She bends forward and strokes my face, her aged hands surprisingly smooth. Her white sleeping gown and her pale skin glow under the sun despite the umbrella, and for a moment, she looks like a ghost, at peace and ready to ascend to the heavens. The wrinkles that tattoo her face warp into a smile and she lets out a single, excited, yip.
And then she slaps me across the face.
The attendant and I communicate with our eyes. I’ve been found. She knows I’m not actually her son. What made you think it would work to begin with? I don’t know. I just had to try.
And then she hugs me.
“What took you so long, Chun?” She sings with laughter. Dry and strained. But happy. “I thought I would die before you came! Hee, hee, heee. Come, get up. Let’s go inside, I may have some candy stored somewhere.”
And so, the attendant wheeled her inside while she held my hand, and we went home.

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Professor Chun opens the door to his home in Berkeley, California. He greets his family, kisses his 6 year old son, takes off his coat, and shuffles through the mail. He tears open the red envelope from China and struggles to read the scrawled characters of his mother’s Chinese:

Chun, my beautiful son,
By the time you read this, I will already have joined your father in the afterlife. My death was inevitable. I went to bed every night knowing that I may not wake up the following day. But ever since you visited me, I could at least go to bed knowing that you truly loved me. Despair not. I have left this world in peace.
I love you, even in the afterlife,
Mama

Chun cries when he puts his son to bed that night. He tells him about how he was never a good son. About how he failed his mother.
“I promise to be a good son, daddy,” his 6 year old son says as he reaches his pudgy fingers towards his father’s face. “I will always be there to wipe away your tears.”
Chun smiles. “That’s easier said than done,” he says in Chinese.