The Figure at the Balcony

She was just an ordinary woman.

Born in the forties, Grandma survived the tumultuous years of a fast-changing China—from the birth of a new republic to the chaotic and ultimately destructive Cultural Revolution.In the late sixties, Grandma and Grandpa moved from their village into the city of Fuzhou with only a few yuans in their pockets and some ragged clothing, characteristic of their humble origins. Not long before I was born, they were able to move into a four-room apartment in a four-floor building, guarded by old, eroded red brick walls and surrounded by little gardens of grapes, cucumbers, pumpkins, and wild clovers.

A narrow, crudely constructed entrance joins a similarly narrow and muddy road to the gardens hiding inside the red brick walls—hiding, from the world outside. A canopy of leaves, vines, and fruits dangling from the trellises tames the blazing sunlight and gives the gardens inside a heart-warming hue. Facing the muddy road, the balconies jut out from the building. The top-floor balcony is where Grandma used to linger, at times tending her night-blooming jasmine and milk-white daffodil, at times doing nothing in particular. I still look for her on the top balcony. I’m used to looking for her. She was always there. She is still there.



Grandma had a prominent rotund belly just like a pregnant woman. It didn’t take long for one to wonder how the two small, disproportional legs magically supported the upper body. She used to walk up and down the stairs every morning to the markets a couple hundred meters away, but she had to walk down one step at a time, putting one foot down and then the other on the same step, and to climb back the same way—with occasional resting periods to catch her breath. I used to mimic the way she walked, just like a crippled person; I used to rush down the stairs just to mock her slowness.

Then I grew up and she grew older. I began to help her walk down the stairs and through the gardens as I supported her arms with mine. A smile often silently dashed across her face, and she would push me away, and say, Shayatou, silly girl, you’re only going to make things harder for me.



And then she began coughing. A retired pharmacist, she thought the coughing indicated nothing more than a cold. She gave herself a few pills once in a while and never really paid attention to her deteriorating condition. As the woman of the household, she had too many other things to care about—the two teenaged granddaughters and three adult children, each with their own problems. Everyone else, except her. Over the next few months her voice grew gradually coarse. When Grandma could barely speak, she finally decided to see the doctor.

She was diagnosed with gastric cancer around the same time my mother brought me to the America for a new life.



Two years later, I returned to China during winter break. As I approached the familiar four-floor building, I immediately spotted a familiar figure on the top floor balcony, leaning against the railing, accompanied by the night-blooming jasmine and milk-white daffodil. As I walked along the winding path that led to the stairs, I saw the familiar grapevines, the trellises, and the wild clovers. The tranquility of the little gardens helped to prepare me for the worst—for the pale face, the emaciated body, and the telltale thinning hair.

However, when I showed up at the front door, what I saw was nothing like what I had imagined. I was welcomed by an old but energetic lady with a wig so full of hair that she actually looked younger than she did two years ago. Grandma smiled enthusiastically and grabbed one of my suitcases quickly and covetously as if competing with Grandpa, my aunt, and my cousin who were standing beside her.

During the time of my visit, Grandma not only cooked our meals everyday but also woke up early in the morning a couple of times and walked down the stairs—the same way, like a crippled person, one foot down and then the other on the same step—to the market a couple hundred meters away to buy my favorite foods. She was always there on the balcony, leaning against the railing, when I returned from shopping, friend-visiting, or sight-seeing at the end of each day. There were times though when I saw her through the narrow gap of the half-opened wooden door sitting before the mirror without her wig, combing the hair that she was once proud of—the few hairs that were still left—with an unfathomable expression on her worn face.

She died shortly after I came back to the United States. Later my older cousin told me, crying hysterically, that Grandma could not even get out of the bed before I went back to see her. No one knew where she got the energy to cook, to walk, to carry my suitcase. Shortly after I left, Grandma told the family that it was enough—the chemotherapy, the pain, and the suffering. She had lived long enough to see the reunion of all her children and grandchildren, completed by the return of her youngest granddaughter.

That was enough. She was just an ordinary woman.