When I first came to China, I would never have thought that I would be attending a friend’s funeral. It is my third funeral this year after my mother-in-law’s and the wife of a good friend. Each of them was terribly sad and shocking in their own way, to say the very least.
Here in China, my English-Australian brother-in-arms, my surrogate dad, has swiftly succumbed to cancer in the bile duct. Prior to my last visit in October, he e-mailed me to say that that he’d just started having tests in hospital. He was typically vague and laid back about communicating the seriousness of his condition, and I didn’t probe. We arranged to meet for Sunday lunch as usual on my first weekend. Untypically, he arrived a little late. When I saw him, his skin was jaundiced and the shade of “I can’t believe it’s not butter”. He’d lost weight and could hardly walk, he was so weak. The shock of seeing someone who had deteriorated so quickly in the four weeks since our last meeting was hard to mask. He still wanted to go for lunch, but I don’t think I was hungrier than he was. I kept on my sunglasses during my visit, to attempt hide my visual discomfort.
He wasn’t in a condition that day be interrogated about his diagnosis and prognosis. I probed as best as I could, gathering at that stage he was still undergoing tests and was an outpatient. In the UK, thanks to the NHS, in his condition you would have been in hospital, no question. In China, all medical bills have to be paid for out of the pocket, and it is shockingly expensive – £400 per day.
Over the course of that four week visit, his condition deteriorated further and his tests proved inconclusive, other that he was diagnosed with cancer somewhere. But they couldn’t find where on his MRI scans. I asked him to contact his daughters in Australia to advise them of his situation, but it was to no avail. He seemed to have made up his mind that he’d had a good innings and this was “it”. I felt desperately helpless and saddened by his situation. When we first met in February, he was relatively fit and now he looked like he was on his last legs. I could have cried for him and did one night.
We kept in touch after my departure for the UK in mid-November.. He had his final tests back a few days after, to say that they could not locate the cancer, but that his major organs were ok. I couldn’t help but think he was keeping the truth from me, and I continued to feel helpless and fear the worst.
Upon my return two weeks ago, I was met by the news that he was back in hospital, a different one, and that his daughters were scheduled to fly to China a few days later. They had been contacted by his Chinese friend Alan. When I visited him in hospital, he recognised me and could talk, but he rambled and it was clear he had deteriorated further. His daughters arrived and in consultation with the hospital and with his own wishes, they took him back to his apartment. They watched over him until he thankfully passed away a few days later. I visited him twice more whilst he was at home. On the first occasion he smiled at me, but on the second he was unconscious and breathing like a rattle. When he died I felt relieved and relaxed, knowing that he was out of his pain, and that his daughters had been there with him. They were clearly relieved as well. I reviewed whether I had done enough to help matters. Should I have been more forceful and assertive with him in October?
His funeral took place a few days later. In China most people are cremated, and this normally occurs within a few days after death, once death certificates are signed. At the crematorium, his body was prepared, clothed and make-up applied, whilst we waited. There were a dozen of us. My customer had kindly given me time off to attend the service. We comprised of his daughters, me and the Chinese friends and neighbours to whom he had given English lessons. Whilst we were there, I reflected on how much that he must have meant to his Chinese friends. Chinese people respect their elders, often standing up for them, when they walk into a room. His Chinese friends had helped organise the funeral and expenses and some had travelled over night to be there, included one young woman who was the first to pass the English language entrance exam into university as a result of his input.
The service as such, revolved around placing the urn containing his ashes on the ground at the crematorium, burning a piece of his clothing, burning a paper house, a paper computer, a paper housekeeper and paper money. These are bought in shops and represent the tradition of sending on items with the departed to make their stay in the next world, comfortable. Then we let off the mother of all crackers, which he must have heard from where he was laying on some heavenly beach with “no worries”. Then we were all hand some real money, which we had to spend on his behalf, which we did at the following meal. It was a brief and dignified service. No real prayers, or priests, just us. His daughters spread his ashes in a nearby river, which runs out into the sea and down to Australia. They also took some of his ashes back to Perth to spread near to his favourite, local brewery. So he’s sorted.
I felt so attached to him over the course of the year, and admired his strength and dignity over the course of those last weeks. He’d made up his mind and accepted that it was his turn, and that there was no point anymore “raging against the dying of the light”, as Dylan Thomas’s poem goes. He didn’t fear life, and he didn’t make a fuss about death. I won’t forget him or the lessons he taught me about speaking your mind and having a sense of independence. I wish I’d known him when I was a young man. He’d have “mentored” me and nudged me when I needed the confidence I didn’t have then. His name was Roger Humphries, of Weston-Super-Mare, Perth, Australia and Gaoming, China, and I’m so glad to have known this human being. It was an edifying relationship.
