The last time I talked to my parents (before tonight), it was on Zoom the night before yesterday. It was mostly my mother and I talking because my father is not all there these days. His dementia is getting worse by the day, and it’s really sad to see.
Side note: No matter how bad our relationship was in the past, it’s painful to see him like this. Dementia is so very cruel, and no one deserves it.
At one point, he started singing. I don’t remember if my mom suggested it or not, but he was happy to sing. He used to be a great singer, and he enjoyed it very much. Now, it’s more like a tuneless monotone that barely resembles song. But if he enjoys it, then so be it. It’s good that there’s something he likes to do. According to my mother, he spends most of his time sleeping.
I patiently listened to him sing song after song. I didn’t mind that much, even though it hurt my heart. And it wasn’t pleasant on my ears. But if it made him happy, then I was ok with it.
At some point, my mother and I talked about a Taiwanese song I really liked. It was a duet, and I could hear snippets of the music in my head, but that was it. I thought it had something to do with blood and a dead soldier and lost love, but I wasn’t sure.
Part of the problem was that I don’t know how to read, write, or speak Chinese. I can understand some basic common phrases, but that’s it.
To back it up a bit, my mother sent me a CD decades ago of a very popular Taiwanese female singer. Well, two CDs of two different popular female singers (or maybe two from the same one?), and there was a song I really liked on it. A duet that was very moody in sound and, I presumed, in lyrics.
I tried to find it on YouTube maybe a decade after that, and I finally found it after much searching. My parents and I have sang it several times together. This is the backstory for what happened in these last few days.
My mother told me the name of the female singer. We then spent the next hour trying to find the song. My father had long since left and went back to bed. My mother and I were separately trying to find this song and not having much success.
My mom said if I could come up with any of the lyrics, that would really help. I thought about it and could not come up with anything. I found other songs by the singer that I liked, including another duet. But not the one I was thinking of.