Going, going, we’re all going…

I am a “middle-aged” man in my sixties. From my mid-forties to just a few years ago, I attended a lot of weddings – mostly weddings of children of friends.

GoingThen I would go to a funeral once in a while. Lately the incidence seemed to have picked up. Some of these services were for the very same parents who invited me to their children’s weddings before.

I just learned that my friend W died a few days ago. W and another friend G and I go back more than thirty years. We would play a mahjong game together, and with their lovely spouses, once in a while. We would talk about our children’s health and education. We would shoot breeze about anything under the sun. We got so close that we even pulled some money together to do some small real estate investments. We made money on some. We lost money on some. But we always were up-front and honest with each other. We were good partners in big dreams.

G went first. He passed a few months ago. W is now gone. I wonder how long I’ve got before I join them for mahjong again.

I was very sick in 2014. When I woke up from unconsciousness after twenty some days, my muddled mind was humming one song over and over again: Amazing Grace. I never knew the lyrics of that song before although I must have heard it many times in funerals. But I didn’t mind that broken recorder in my brain. I actually liked it. I promised myself I would learn to sing it once I got out from those boring-as-hell hospitals. (I was in and out of three of them.)

I did learn to sing that song, with guitar chords to boot. In a few days I’ll sing it at W’s memorial, both for him and his family, for you and for me.

Amazing Grace
By John Newton, 1779

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now I’m found. Was blind but now I see.
Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come.
It’s grace that brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.
奇异恩典,何等甘甜,我罪已得赦免。
前我失丧,今被寻回,瞎眼重得再见。
When we’ve been here ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’ve first begun.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now I’m found. Was blind but now I see.
Was blind but now I see…

*** The End ***

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