wait to die

Chatting with an elder today, he looked listless and asked him what he was doing. He either answered "I don't know" or "I don't remember." After asking a few more questions, the elder got annoyed and replied, "That's it, one day counts as one day, just wait for death!"

This elder just passed his 85th birthday. During the epidemic, everything was kept simple. There was a daughter who failed to come back from abroad.

The elders were academic bullies when they were young, and because of their poor family background, they worked all the way until they graduated from college. Before graduation, the professor helped him write a letter of recommendation to study abroad, but he refused. He didn't want to continue working and studying in a foreign country, so after graduating from college, he found a teaching position, got married and had children, and he was stable for decades.

But on the day he participated in the 20-year reunion of his college classmates, he found that his grades in the class were far inferior to those of his class. Some of them became big bosses when they started companies, and some became professors in the United States, which made him a big blow.

After that, as if nothing happened, the elder continued to teach at the school and go to get off work, but it seemed that the smile on his face began to diminish from that day.

His daughter clearly remembered the disappointment and loneliness on his face after he returned from the class reunion, and told herself that she must not regret life like her elders when she grows up.

After a few more years, the elder retired. His daughter asked him what plans he had. He said, "That's it, every day counts as one day!"

The elders have been retired for more than 25 years. He is receiving a "monthly refund", so life is not a problem. But he also "passed a day and counted a day" for more than 25 years.

In recent years, the brothers and sisters of the elders have passed away respectively, and the elders have become more and more lonely. I often don’t say a word at home, sleep three times a day, read the newspaper in the morning, and sit on the sofa in a daze at other times.

His children were worried about him, but there was nothing he could do: a part of him died on the day he attended the 20th year college reunion.

He's been waiting to die for over 25 years.