Eclipse

I went back to the hospital on Sunday night.

It happened after the news that my wife's erhu teacher had a clot that shut down blood flow to his brain, almost like a fast-acting half eclipse of the brain. The clot couldn't be cleared. My wife and I were secretly hoping that we could talk briefly with her teacher. Of course, she couldn't, because he wouldn't, and he didn't. Her teacher didn't wake up.

My wife was feeling emptied out after hearing the sad story. I suppose this is more so when she had just had an erhu lesson the night before the eclipse. I commiserated, and she talked for a while of how she met her teacher nigh on a decade ago, of how her teacher had showed her the passion, of what she'd learned.

I can feel the heart-wrenching emptiness. Like air hissing out of a tyre in the blink of an eye, without rehearsal. Before she knew it, hers turned out to be the last lesson. This one isn't easy. Mitch Albom could foresee his last Tuesday with Morrie, and Randy Pausch knew very well when he was going to give his last lecture.

It seems, but only seems, that the way to shake off the bad feeling is to make a not-so-serious remark, "Don't think you played erhu so badly to give your teacher a stroke."