Pa and I spoke at breakfast. I sensed something was bothering him and so asked how he was feeling.
“I’m fine, but thank you Fred for your concern.”
It was the first time since I was a boy that Pa addressed me by my given name.
He continued.
“Since returning, I’ve been thinking about the remaining days. There aren’t many. When we started in January it seemed like a long time. But now . . . “
“But Pa, you’ll be around for eternity, or at least until everything spirals down to the Omega Point. You know, the big dot.”
“Yes, that’s what they tell us. But when I speak of remaining days, I mean the time you and I have left together.”
He grew quiet, then asked “You’ll keep me around until the end, won’t you?”
“Of course I will.”
He then wondered if I still had the photos, the ones I showed him on the train to Barcelona. I did and removed them from my wallet. Of the six, he took hold of the one from his retirement party.
“You see here, my expression? Many would look at it and suggest I had feelings of sadness, my career having come to an end. To the contrary. I was feeling regret at failing to retire earlier. Had I known then what I know now, I would have retired much younger, as you did. I worked too hard, and for too long. Whatever energy I‘d had to explore the world had left me.”
I felt sad for dear Pa and took his hand.
“There’s something else. They only allow us to return once, and only under special circumstances. To allow a constant back and forth would create a rift in the universe and no one knows the outcome of that, not even Einstein and his brethren.”
Before I could ask the question, Pa answered it.
“We can return the one time, but only if requested by a descendant with whom we had a special connection. There is such a small window of opportunity that it occurs rarely among the billions of souls. That’s why there’s great interest in my travels. Only one person I’ve met has been called back, my good friend Walt Whitman. And that was a unique circumstance. Perhaps I’ll tell about it sometime.”
I didn’t tell Pa that I was familiar with it.
He then inquired if I knew of the poet René Rilke.
I said I did.
“He’s a friend too. I’ve come to like poets, more than others, even the novelists. Like Chuang and me, René was born in 1875. Just before I arrived here, he read to me one of his favorites. Written when he was 28, it informed him daily until his death at 50.”
You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all.
The darkness of each endless fall.
The shimmering light of each ascent.
So many are alive who don’t seem to care.
Casual, easy, they move in the world
as though untouched.
But you take pleasure in the faces
of those who know they thirst.
You cherish those who grip you for survival.
You are not dead yet.
It’s not too late to open your depths
by plunging into them,
and drink in the life
that reveals itself quietly there.
“Fred, I want a lot too in the remaining days I have here. I want to know the sea and sky. Ride boats, gaze at great buildings, visit little shops, and be with the people. When the end is near, I want to visit my old high school, the courthouse, the house where Bea and I and the girls lived for all those years. I want to go home one last time. Can we do that?”
I promised we’d do it all, beginning right then.
And so we did, boarding an early ferry at Tsim Sha Tsu pier.
On the crossing to Hong Kong Island, we gazed at great buildings
and took delight in passing boats.
When it was time to return, we did the same.
Disembarking, we made our way to Nathan Road,
passing high rises
and upscale shops.
too many to count.
After a time, new gave way to old,
until we were at the edge of Yau Ma Tei,
the former village where anything can be purchased.
Temple Street is its main artery,
where seekers are greeted with jewelry stores
and money changers.
But the heart of the neighborhood is its market,
stretching half the length of the street,
and along adjacent ones as well.
But the complexion changes,
and other goods are sold.
And as Temple Street continues,
a different marketplace emerges.
Pa and I were saddened by the sight, though not not surprised. As a judge, Pa accepted the pleas of many ladies. And I, as a state’s attorney, prosecuted many of their cases.
Neither of us took pleasure in our roles, aware that their profession was a manifestation of deep and long lasting wounds.
In the evening, Pa retired early, weary from two days on the move.
Reviewing photos from four days in Hong Kong, I recalled a passage from The Art of Stillness, Pico Iyer’s slim classic:
We glimpse a stranger on the street, and the exchange lasts a moment. But we go home and think on it and try to understand what the glance meant, spinning futures and fantasies around it. An experience that lasts an instant plays out for a lifetime inside us, becoming the story of our lives.
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