A Better Life, and Farewells | Grandma Kouzi
After enduring seasons of oppression, sorrow, and gloom, I have come to appreciate just how vital happiness, bliss, and sunshine are. Life is hard; we must create our own happy, blissful, sunlit times.
I. Creating Happiness and Bliss
Expanding the shell ginger patches: plant them in pairs with roots, 40cm apart, and bury sprouting tubers in between. Ignore those who say “plant singly, one metre apart”—shell ginger is hardy, thrives easily, and doesn’t fear dense planting. That is the only way to create a floral wall as quickly as possible.
The seedlings from Villain’s Valley are my own; I don’t have to pay for them, and I have as many as I need. Why on earth should I be stingy or hoard them?
Recently, long beans have entered their peak season—the very “bean-stalks” that gave children from the four provinces of the heartland psychological trauma. I love growing purple long beans; they are high in anthocyanins.
In Villain’s Valley, we don’t stir-fry them; we boil them, which brings out a subtle sweetness. This way of eating is only for home-grown beans; those bought from a shop are almost inedible when boiled.
When boiling long beans, they shouldn’t be too tender, nor too old. The beans should be slightly firm, but the pod overall hasn’t lost its flesh and remains plump; when you bite into them, they are sweet and have a slightly starchy, mealy texture.
During the season when long beans arrive in abundance, there is a certain “pressure” to eat them, often leading to feeling overstuffed. Then, it suddenly clicked: isn’t it more fragrant to only pick out the beans themselves?
Once I realised this, it was as if my *Ren* and *Du* meridians had been cleared; the life of a bean-eating citizen suddenly became blissful. The land is mine, the beans are mine; why should I save them for anyone?
I pick and choose, eating only the beans and discarding more than half, leaving a whole basin of waste.
Speaking of eggs, there are always various “experts” humming along and lecturing us, saying that while eggs are good, one shouldn’t have too many—no more than two a day. But what about a foodie who doesn’t eat meat and is used to having two per meal? Since I can’t argue with the “experts”, I’ll just skip eggs at lunch and have duck eggs instead; I have plenty of those, too.
Those so-called dietary guideline standards are for people who sit more than they move, eat refined carbohydrates, and exceed their limits on sugar and oil. A farmer from Villain’s Valley gets plenty of exercise and daily labour; the ingredients are healthy, the cooking is simple with little oil and salt, so I can eat exactly how I please.
To borrow from Kant, “Freedom is being able to not do what you do not want to do”. For me, this means rejecting other people’s standards. By not letting others’ standards become my own, I can enjoy not only happy, blissful, sunlit times, but also good health.
This isn’t just talk; I have the facts to prove it. During my last health check-up, the centre had added a row of consultation rooms where many retired traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners were seeing patients. When I collected my report, the triage nurse pushed me straight in—people of my age are the primary target group. Even if there’s no organic pathology, you’re bound to have a bit of neurasthenia, deficiency of *qi* and blood, spleen and stomach disharmony, or endocrine imbalance. There’s always a high-tech overseas product, a secret proprietary TCM medicine, or the latest miracle health supplement that’s right for you; no one ever walks out empty-handed. That day, I was the exception. After a round of inspection, listening, questioning, and pulse-taking, the expert slapped my health report and chased me out: “You can eat, you can go to the loo, you can sleep, and you can run. Why on earth are you here causing trouble?”
Outrageous! I was shoved in here; I swear on my cholesterol that I wasn’t trying to cause trouble.
II. So-called Destiny is Nothing More than the Instinct to Fear Death
Regarding death, it was simple: I signed an organ donation agreement with the Red Cross. I just signed; I didn’t worry about the rest.
Regarding life, it was a bit more complicated. I paid an entry fee to sign up for the first half marathon of my life. The difficult part wasn’t the fee, but the fact that I had to start practising running from that day forward.
What was even more difficult was that my health was in a terrible state at the time: severe depression, a collapsed immune system, and a lingering low-grade fever and cough that lasted over two months after a cold.
Life and death are momentous matters. At the lowest ebb of my physical and mental health, I seriously contemplated the question of “to be, or not to be”. Today I admire Cai Lei; back then, I admired Stephen Hawking. I was certain I could never be as strong as they were. If pain ever throttled me, I knew I would give up on life and choose the easier path.
After various treatments proved ineffective, I rejected all advice from both TCM and Western medicine. I used self-prescribed herbal tea and ran while coughing and gasping for air.
I decided not to trust the doctors and instead try to heal myself. Running was my final gamble; if it didn’t work, I would end my own life.
At that time, I wasn’t afraid of death, but of living—afraid of living a life worse than death.
Before fifty, I had never exercised systematically. I started running on my birthday; I found it better to trust myself than anyone else.
Three months later, I completed my first half marathon. I’ve been addicted ever since, and have maintained the habit for ten years.
It isn’t running that I love, but living well.
III. Fear of Death
In truth, there was something else rather troublesome on my fiftieth birthday: I wanted to use my organ donation pledge as a way to start a conversation about life and death with my parents, but I didn’t succeed. It was my last attempt; they avoided the subject of mortality, and I didn’t press them.
But while one can avoid the topic of life and death, one cannot avoid life and death themselves.
My father passed away at 93 and my mother at 88; both lived long lives. My siblings and I took turns providing round-the-clock care for ten years. Before entering the ICU, they could still move and eat independently and had no pressure sores. Had it not been for the ICU, they might have been said to have died peacefully in their own beds. But there were no “had it not beens”; my parents spent their final moments in the ICU—four days for my father, forty-four for my mother.
When my father was carried onto the ambulance, he was already unresponsive, yet his hand was gripping his waistband; his trousers were only half-pulled up.
At the ICU entrance, we had to sign a standardised disclosure form mentioning that cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) could potentially cause rib fractures. Lacking courage, I stepped aside and let my eldest sister sign it.
The doctor first informed us that my father was brain-dead and told us to complete the paperwork. But shortly after, while we were still searching for the necessary documents, he told us: CPR had restored his heartbeat, and my father had become a vegetable.
The ICU is a closed unit by nature, and during the pandemic, visitations were strictly forbidden; we had to rely entirely on the doctor’s phone calls. My mobile number was on the admission forms, and I would receive calls every morning in the early hours, providing the routine update on treatment. At one o’clock in the morning on the fourth day, I was told that the bowel obstruction had not responded to an enema and that there had been a cardiac arrest. I was asked to discuss with my family whether we should continue resuscitation if his heart stopped again.
I told him there was no need for discussion; let’s stop. I couldn’t get the image of my father’s hand clutching his trousers out of my mind; though his consciousness was fading, that final sense of shame remained. I feared the “rib fractures” caused by CPR, and I prayed that brain death would mean he could no longer feel pain—prayed that he would not be held captive by it.
My mother spent much longer in the ICU: forty-four days. She was covered in tubes—a breathing tube for air, a nasogastric tube for food and water, a catheter for urine, and various lines for monitoring blood glucose, blood pressure, and heart rate. Simultaneously, she was on eight different medications: anti-inflammatories, antifungals, antipyretics, vasopressors, sedatives, hypoglycaemics, cardiac stimulants, and diuretics… Someone in an advanced life-support system is like the human batteries in The Matrix.
In this system, nudity is the standard. Every piece of clothing hinders the procedure; the clothes humans use for modesty and warmth were not designed for the ICU.
I began to feel grateful for my father’s brain death. When my mother first entered the ICU, she was still conscious, experiencing both pain and shame, but with a tube in her mouth, she could not speak, and with her body fixed by machinery, she could not react.
I was horrified by this way of dying. Looking back through the archives of Foodthink, it has been over half a year since my last piece; it is the first time I have gone this long without updating.
It didn’t stop me from getting things done, from farming, or from running and swimming. It simply made it impossible to concentrate my mind, to think and express myself effectively. I repeatedly tried to piece together the circumstances of my parents’ deaths on paper and on screen, attempting countless times to write a post for my WeChat public account, but I simply couldn’t do it.
IV. Rejecting a ‘Bad Death’
We had previously signed a document stating that she should not be admitted to the ICU and should not receive excessive treatment; our clear goal was the alleviation of suffering. The following noon, a nasogastric tube was inserted because she could no longer feed herself. This is standard hospital practice, and since we didn’t view it as an invasive trauma, we didn’t object.
It was only after the tube was inserted that I realised that within the medical system, external support is a sequence; once you begin, the rest follows inevitably.
To prevent the tube from being pulled out, sedatives were administered—essentially an induced coma. In a comatose state, one cannot bowel or bladder naturally, so a urinary catheter was inserted. My mother’s oxygen saturation was already low and she was on continuous oxygen; once comatose, the nasal cannula provided insufficient oxygen, so a respiratory tube was inserted. Once on a respiratory tube, she had to go into the ICU… Every step had a full and necessary medical justification for saving a life. And so, my mother, in the winter of her years, was unable to pass away peacefully surrounded by her family; instead, she was sent to the ICU to suffer an undignified death.
Before the tubes, my mother’s bowel and bladder functions were normal and mostly under control. The night before the tubes were inserted, she had three bowel movements in bed; each was enormous, yet clearly not diarrhoea. She was conscious for the first two, but by the third, she was almost unresponsive. From then on, she rarely woke up.
This was the body sending its signal of farewell. When a person is close to death, the cessation of eating and the emptying of the bowels are the body’s primal instincts. In those final moments, when one neither eats nor drinks, the body fills with ketones, which creates a sense of peace. I have read many books on near-death experiences; they all say that dying is not painful, but comfortable—a soaring towards the light. This feeling is perhaps the final gift received on this journey of life.
Life and death have their own logic, but hospitals have the logic of saving lives. The advanced life-support systems in the ICU block this natural process and confiscate this gift.
The tug-of-war between medical machinery and natural law obstructs the natural departure of life and strips away dignity and autonomy; this is a bad death. I fear this kind of death; I am terrified of it.
I want my own departure to be smooth. I will be direct about my method: I am signing a Living Will, specifically stating that I waive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), the use of a ventilator, esophageal feeding, and admission to the ICU.
One must act while they are still lucid and capable of making choices, fighting for the right to die naturally. Death comes for us all; the final freedom of this life is to refuse the way of dying we do not want, and to refuse an undignified death.
V. I Deserve a Better Life
During the writing process, I accidentally deleted some text regarding my parents. I didn’t try to recover it; I took it as a sign from fate, a divine hint telling me to let go.
A Living Will is to ensure a “good death”. But for every day before that, I must fight for a “good life”.
While I have no desire to endure immense suffering for the sake of a “greater meaning” as Cai Lei or Stephen Hawking did, I will put effort into a life that is meaningful and interesting. I deserve times that are happy, blissful, and bright.
Despite my fear of death, I have a very concrete and detailed attachment to this worldly life—such as a love of eating. Since childhood, I was disciplined never to be “lazy and gluttonous”. Now that I am self-sufficient, my goal is more fruit and miscellaneous grains, shifting my focus entirely from merely “being able to eat” to “eating well”.
I’ve added some small improvements to Evil Valley to beautify the environment and boost my happiness index, such as creating a riverside floral landscape and making a few crafts, like this reading rack. Boiled long beans are healthy and tasty, but they take a lot of manual effort to shell. The reading rack frees up my hands, allowing me to read and shell beans simultaneously—both a feast for the eyes and the palate.
I also bought some fitness equipment to learn strength training. My goal isn’t a superhuman physique, but rather to preserve muscle and slow its loss. To maintain autonomy over one’s body, one needs muscle; there is no better way to improve the quality of life.
Ten years ago, to dissuade me from running marathons, my father searched online for “marathon sudden death”. He told me about an 84-year-old American grandmother who finished a marathon in the morning and had popped off by the afternoon.
My mother, who didn’t know how to use the internet, chimed in: “Just don’t run marathons and you’ll be fine.”
I was delighted to hear this: to run with grace and freedom in the morning, and then simply and swiftly ascend to heaven in the afternoon—that is a true blessing earned over several lifetimes.
To die like the marathon grandmother became a life goal of mine. Although I know that relying on oneself is better than relying on others, as someone who loves running, swimming, farming, reading, and an indulgent, idle life, I cannot help but pray to Buddha, Jesus, Allah, the Jade Emperor, Grandma Taishan, and all the gods of the heavens: may my cultivation in this life grant me happy, blissful, and bright times, and may I enjoy a natural, clean, and decisive goodbye.
Unless otherwise stated, all images are provided by the author
Editor: Xiao Dan