After an urgent four-day trip and a whirlwind of activity for my mother-in-law’s funeral, I sat down on the plane and felt a numbness creep into my body. During the wake and the funeral, I didn’t shed too many tears. All of a sudden, I started weeping uncontrollably.

Maybe it was exhaustion after the long flight, a fully packed trip, the wake and the funeral arrangement; or maybe it was guilt, grief and a heavy heart gripped by sadness.

The sudden loss of a loved one is an emotional precipice, leaving survivors holding onto a false hope that never existed. It happened so fast that we were all caught unprepared. But perhaps my mother-in-law is blessing us from another world. Everything went surprisingly smoothly.

It was Sunday morning. I was at the shopping mall and the day started just like any other weekend. Then a phone call from my wife changed the day completely. She informed me that her mother just passed away from lung cancer and then lost her voice on the other end. I arranged my trip a few hours later and booked a flight for the next day. I was lucky as the flight was less than 24 hours and some airline websites didn’t allow bookings on such short notice.

I never asked my friends to help, but many of them volunteered even though they got the news only a day before my arrival. After half a day’s flight, one of my best friends in China, Yi, picked me up at the airport and drove more than one hour straight to the wake. Without him, I would have spent much more time on the road.

When I got there, family, relatives and three of my other friends were already there, paying their respects to my mother-in-law. The four friends all came from another city and the trip was more than an hour’s drive on the highway.

My 4-year-old son showed me to his grandmother in the wake hall. He took me to the casket, in which my late mother-in-law was lying. Her face looked peaceful, though clearly sunken, much skinnier than she used to be and visibly older. My son said to me that his grandmother was still sleeping and didn’t wake up. My wife told him that his grandmother traveled to the star and he asked: “She will get better?” I looked at his innocent face and couldn’t fight back the tears.

Looking at my mother-in-law lying there peacefully, I could almost feel her presence, as if she was just asleep. I knelt down in front of the casket, where a picture of her was hung, buried my face in the cushion under my knees and let the tears stream down my cheeks. I said in my mind: “I’m so sorry mother that I couldn’t even see you for the last time.” I heard my own mother said to the casket, her voice cracking: “He has come home to see you.”

My mom later told me when my friend Yi knelt down in the wake hall to pay his respects, he was crying silently and didn’t raise his head after a long time. I didn’t see it myself, but I think at that moment, he could be thinking of his own dad and feeling grateful to my mother-in-law at the same time.

Yi’s dad is also suffering from lung cancer. Yi met my mother-in-law once in the hospital and they had a nice chat about how to live with cancer. My mother-in-law later also lent him a big sum of money as Yi was in urgent need of cash for his new house settlement.

That is my mother-in-law, a nice lady who is kind to everyone. Despite the fact that she didn’t really know my friend that well and was in a fight for her own life that was surely going to cost money, she offered her help without reservation.

At dinner, we sat together with my friends. My wife mentioned that her mother’s last wish was to get her ashes spread in Dongting Lake, a famous lake in China. It was in another city and far from where we were.

It didn’t occur to me and my wife that it was out of the ordinary, until my friends shared with us that my mother-in-law really thought ahead and planned it for us. In China, people must pay respects to their parents and ancestors after they are gone. Every year, offspring need to sweep their tombs, a tradition that is passed down from over two thousand years ago. Knowing we live overseas and it’s not going to be easy for us to go back to China to visit her tomb, she chose to spread her ashes in a lake that’s three hours’ drive from her home.

My friends said that will also save us from the shaming by others. People would bad-mouth us if we wouldn’t go back sweep her tomb every year: “Even if you can live with yourselves, you can’t live with the gossips. People will say you are bad children because you don’t even want to make the effort to come back and sweep her tomb.”

How to realize it is a challenge though. The lake is in another city, Yueyang, where we don’t know anyone and didn’t have a clue about how to go about it.

Maybe my mother-in-law is blessed. Another friend at the table, Chen, offered help. He knows a friend, Liu, who is a native and well connected in that city.

The second day, Chen and Liu arranged everything, including the route to the city, the boat trip to the lake and the details of the ceremony.

Early morning the next day, we held the funeral and my mother-in-law’s body was cremated. The third day, Liu and Chen came to our place at 7 in the morning and drove me and my wife to Yueyang, where the famous Dongting Lake was located. It was early August and the day was very hot. We spent 3.5 hours on the highway. The two friends showed us the place and explained everything about how it would be done. They didn’t ask anything of us.

We picked a good spot to do it. The scenery was breathtaking and we were in awe of the place. The field trip also provided a respite for us. For a brief moment, we weren’t feeling pain and were relieved that we could help my mother-in-law fulfill her final wish. My wife said: “This is definitely a place that she would like.”

By the time Chen reached his own place after he sent us home from Yueyang, it was already past midnight. We didn’t know how to thank him and asked him to let us at least top up the gas for his car. He waved us off: “This is what friends are for.”

We set the date for a Saturday that was in two weeks. I flew back again on a short trip, but I knew it was the right thing to do. Everything had been well arranged by friends. Chen and Yi each sent a car to pick us up; my mother-in-law’s boss chartered a bus and a dozen colleagues joined the trip. We set out at 6:30am. There wasn’t any traffic on the highway and three hours later, we were all there. A boat hired by Liu was already there waiting for us.

It was late August. Summer was coming to an end and the weather was nice, bright and sunny but not too hot. It was a very emotional event. Relatives, friends and colleagues left their flowers on the boat to see my mother-in-law off for the last time. My wife, father-in-law, son, me and a few relatives sat on the boat and sailed 30 minutes to the center of Dongting Lake.

The lake is so huge that we can’t see the banks, and it is so peaceful and beautiful. All seemed perfect.

The boat slowed down for us. My wife sobbed quietly when she was spreading her mother’s ashes into the lake. My father-in-law was silent throughout the boat trip. He didn’t even say a word. I could tell from his face that he was overwhelmed by a profound sadness. My son didn’t know what was really going on, but he said goodbye to his grandmother.

I looked at the peaceful lake, its water patting the boat sides gently, my wife scattering her mom’s ashes slowly into the soft waves, I felt that part of me – part of us – was washed away. And I couldn’t stop wondering: How much courage it took my mother-in-law to choose this? How much sacrifice she made for us? In a country where most people stick with the traditional practice of interring ashes in a tomb, her decision is nothing but unconventional.

The whole thing went very well, no hiccup anywhere, even though it was a trip to a place we didn’t know. The next day, rain started pouring and continued for a few days. If we chose to do it just one day later, we wouldn’t have made it.

At only 62, my mother-in-law was taken away from us by a cruel disease. Her passing left a void in all of us, especially my wife and father-in-law. My wife recounted that when she lied next to her in her final days, my mother-in-law stroke her head and said softly: “You must be strong.” My wife replied: “I’m not as strong and brave as you. I don’t know how you can be so calm when dealing with such a terrible terminal illness. I can’t do it.” My father-in-law, an introvert who sees my mother-in-law as his soul mate and only tells her his deepest thoughts, still texts to her phone at night.

In her life, my mother-in-law was a successful career woman who had a strong sense of duty. Once, when my wife walked to a bank together with her, the bank manager was full of praises for her, both as a successful accountant and a person of integrity. Living far away from her mom, my wife didn’t know that she was admired by many colleagues. That said a bunch and made my wife very proud.

My mother-in-law was also very organized. She paid a lot of attention to details, always sorted out her things carefully and placed them neatly. Her cabinets are tagged with notes of what’s inside. Grandmother used to joke: “Even her rag is washed clean and lily white.”

She had always had a great deal of fortitude and determination. Growing up in the 1960s, my mother-in-law didn’t get a chance to get higher education because of the turbulent years during the cultural revolution in China back then. But she didn’t give up and signed up for night courses after my wife was born. There was one night when she was taking a class, my wife, still little, fell asleep on a rock when playing outside the classroom. My mother-in-law was so sad that she almost changed her mind. But she didn’t. She persevered and pushed ahead with her study and finally got her college qualification.

She showed that fortitude in her final days as well. During the five months since she was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer, she didn’t complain once that she couldn’t hang on, despite the pain that she was suffering. It is quite amazing that throughout that time, she was lighthearted and even showed a positive attitude, as if she was at peace with the harsh reality. She had never looked depressed, frustrated or desperate. Instead of worrying about her own life, she was worried about how we would cope when she is gone.

In the first two months, she still took care of her own mother, who is 85 years old, bedridden and has severe dementia. My mother-in-law had been taking care of her for years and working full-time at the same time. Though she didn’t get help from her siblings, she didn’t hold any grudge. She said that was what she wanted to do for her mother.

And the bravest thing she did during her last few months amazed us all. She planned for her funeral and organized what needed to be done by herself, without telling us that she was certain she didn’t have much time to live.

Thinking back, that must be a lonely journey for her. The amount of fortitude, courage, her love for her family and her grace in her final days, are the things that I will always remember about this incredible woman.

Part of my wife’s eulogy for her mom:

至今我仍无法接受妈妈已经离开了我。她用一生无私地爱着我，她是我最好的朋友。她的离开在我心中留下无法填补的空洞。每天夜深人静的时候，心里的空虚和无尽的思念无以言表。家中的一花一木，一针一线无时无刻不在提醒着我她的存在。整理她的衣物是一种痛苦，不舍和无奈。一切都成了回忆。

…… 我好想念妈妈，希望时间可以倒转，一切可以重来。如果我可以待在她身边，也许一切都会不一样。

…… 我和妈妈最大的乐趣就是一起逛街，并不是说一定要买什么，我们就是喜欢一起走走看看聊聊天，享受彼此的陪伴。每次回来，这都是我和妈妈必做的一件事情。

南美洲的文化是有极乐世界的。他们相信逝去的亲人们都会在极乐世界等着我们和他们团聚。我也相信我们一家人会团聚。妈妈会等着我们。