08/16/2025 Saturday 73-87F Cloudy
This Tuesday we heard the sad news that Jeffrey, my husband’s cousin, passed away in a hospital in South Carolina.
In the past eight years since we moved to the USA from Shanghai, I only met him once, which was about five years ago. But I heard about him occasionally since his brother Jerry was very close to my husband.
Decades ago, he married a Japanese lady. They were happy couple then, lived in New York city. However, one day, without any clue or sign, his wife jumped off the building where they were living and took her life. He couldn’t figure out why she did it—as far as he considered, there was no trouble, misunderstanding, nor frustration in their lives. Unfortunately, perhaps because no explanation could be found, this mystery had haunted him for a long time if it ever left him.
Carrying all the scars (he lost his mother as well when he was five), he moved on with his life. Years later he transferred to South Carolina, remarried, raised two children, a daughter and a son. Everyone thought that finally he had turned the page and forgotten the past. Afterward, he divorced; and afterward, he got a serious health problem and lost part of his one leg.
It was after that surgery, we and Jerry and some other relatives met him in a restaurant in Manhattan. Walking with two canes, he still looked in a high spirit, and was very keen to help us look for parking spots. He was a funny person, seemed to never take anything seriously. During the lunch, he kept laughing, telling jokes, and making fun of his children. What I remember vividly was that after his teenage son ordered his own dish, Jeffrey looked at him, joking: “Are you kidding? You came to New York just for French fries? If you don’t know, why not take a look and see what everyone else ordered?”
We all laughed. The kid blushed to scarlet, perhaps had sensed himself of being provincial. He murmured: “I like French fries.” While on the other hand, he called the waitress to change his dish. Jeffrey commented again in a light tone: “If you like French fries, then stick to it. You never looked so interested in French fries when home.” After saying this, he shrugged, gave out a critical chuckle.
Eventually the son had his French fries. During the rest of the meal, Jeffrey continued to make fun of everything or everybody considered funny by him in his light-hearted way.
I liked him. Giving the images he showed, I thought that he was an easy-going man, engaging and positive, which perhaps was what he purposely wanted to make others believe.
Later on, more and more not so positive news about him were heard: He refused to be collaborative with the doctors, ignored all their advice and lived in a very willful way. Eventually his health condition worsened; he had to stay in hospital more frequently and for longer periods.
Then another tragedy happened. His daughter, who was younger than twenty, committed suicide last year. Except for the lunch mentioned earlier in Manhattan, I met that girl once more on Jerry’s birthday. She was shy and kind-hearted, smiling softly when people talked to her; but most of the time, she just sat quietly, alone.
Nobody could tell that she was bothered by a severe depression at that time. Later she received treatment in a care center in Pennsylvania. Months later, when everybody thought that she was recovered, she started to work in a nearby shop. One evening her cousin called her; their chat went as normal. However, the very next day when the cousin called her again several times, there was no answer. He and the other relatives contacted everyone to try to connect to her, including her landlord, her shop, just nobody knew where she was. They reported her missing to the police. One day later the police called them and told that her body was found in a woods near where she lived—she put a bullet into her stomach.
That was the end of her young life. We didn’t know how this impacted Jeffrey. Jerry went to see him several times; all we knew about him was that he became fussier and fussier; basically he was killing himself slowly.
Now his life has ended as well. In another world, will he meet his Japanese wife and ask her why she decided to leave him all of a sudden which mentally wounded him so deeply? Will he meet his daughter and know how to soothe her long-ignored heart and wasted youth? Will they form a happy family there and all live a long life?
I don’t know. Nobody can know. May they rest in peace.
One person asks another person: “Why do you feel so lonely even when you are with people?”
That person answers: “Because my flesh and soul are not together.”
Yesterday standing by the gravesite and watching Jeffrey’s coffin slowly lowered into the grave, I couldn’t help thinking:
Among all the people attending the funeral, who would be the next one death called for?
When my day came, who would be or whom would I expect the most to be in my funeral?
I had no answer. I only heard myself telling me: “When we are still alive, we should embrace every happy moment as hard as possible, until we no more can.”
