My Uncle——杨文昊（ Nicole Yang ）

2013-03-01

 

     The moment I stepped into the ward, I was shocked by an agonizing scene: a hairless bony man was coughing, retching, curling up in his bed. Through the stripped old pajamas, his protruding ribs were explicit; his cheek bones were so sharp that the skin was on the fringe to be cut open. This is my uncle, I thought. My mind then literally skipped a few seconds and my heart almost exploded as if tons of rocks were put on me. Tears slowly dripped down my face into my mouth. Those tears were not salty; they were bitter and seasoned with shock and fear. For the first time, I cried in public.

      Fast-forward two days. My mom told me that my uncle was dying of stage four gastric cancer, so we rushed back to Xinjiang to visit him once more. My uncle used to be a tall sturdy man, but this deadly disease disabled him from eating or drinking and now here he was lying, broken, in a hospital bed.

       Shockingly enough, that man in bed was even more optimistic than everyone else. While I was sobbing beside the bed, he was the one who comforted me and told me to take it easy. That only made me sadder.

       I’ve never known my uncle very well. In my early memories, he was just the guy that teased me all the time and always got into squabbles with family. After my parents moved to Beijing, I didn’t see him very often. My uncle was basically a stranger to me. But because of his illness, I came back and lived with him for two weeks, and my life changed.

       Luck doesn’t seem to favor my uncle. Being the oldest son in his family, my uncle had to take care of his three siblings while my grandparents were away. My uncle loved photography and he got his opportunity to study in Shanghai. But my uncle couldn’t just unload his responsibility to pursue his dream. All the hardships and turbulence were far from enough to defeat my uncle, instead, they built a real man as tough as iron.

       Despite toughness, his humor and optimism were also the outcomes of his life-long tribulation. My uncle often joked about his appearance when friends or colleagues visited; he made fun of stupid mistakes in books or on TV. Like I said before, when I was little, he always made fun of me. I didn’t really like him or his jokes. Until now I’ve grown up and finally, I realized how optimistic he always was. Facing his worsening health condition, my uncle kept his faith and positive attitude. While looking at my uncle, I could barely tell that he was a dying patient.

       My uncle was the toughest guy I have known, and though he had left us, he passed on his courage and optimism to me, and drove me to conquer all the obstacles in an unknown future.