Monster in the Other World: Navigating Two Worlds with a Gallows Grin
The stage is crowded when there is a show to demonstrate “The world is full of love”.
In the wake of my wife’s passing, and by accident, I found myself straddling on two vastly divided worlds. It was about how people perceive me as a human. The stark contrast between these worlds unfolded one evening when I overheard a conversation between my son Jack and a mysterious man on the phone. Totally out of the blue, this phone call took me from the depth of grief to the absurdity of being labeled a “monster.”
Two weeks after my wife’s passing, Jack and I were still deep in the throes of mourning. It was during one of those lonely nights that I eavesdropped on their conversation. Weird enough, they were on speakerphone mode. Maybe Jack thought I was not in the house. Weirder yet, the man on the other end of the line threw a bunch of perplexing questions that rattled not only my ears, but also my heart.
“Is your Dad charging you for living there?” What? Am I being seen as a landlord in my own home?
“If you leave the house for good, take your mom’s urn with you. Rent a safe box in the bank to keep it.” What the hell? By all the laws, she was my wife. I never imagined that my relationship with my son would be reduced to the custody of the urn of his mom, my wife.
“If you leave your car in the house, ask your dad to pay you 10k dollars or so. Because it was gifted to you by both your mom and dad.” The third question feels like a dagger to my heart. Am I now just a chauffeur with an extortion fee?
Jack and I had never separated for long since his birth. We’d had our fair share of father-son battles during his teenage years, but the idea of me being perceived as a stranger or, worse yet, a monster was beyond comprehension.
What struck me even more than the questions themselves was the matter-of-fact voice in which Jack responded. “No, not yet,” his reply to the first question. “Okay, I will look into it,” he says in response to the second. And, “Okay, I will keep it in mind,” he utters to the third. He is navigating this conversation with a logic that seems natural for him but seems to come from a different universe for me.
I felt numb with shock for maybe a few seconds or a century. Then I decided to retreat. The rest of the conversation was unknown. Half an hour later, Jack ended the phone call and came down. Heartbroken and confused, I asked him about the conversation. Were you talking about a villain or someone legally your father?
Jack’s calm demeanor was as striking as the news he revealed. The man on the phone was one of the names his mom had mentioned would help him after she passed away. My wife, a high-ranking official in a prominent university in China, had built an extensive network during her career, and this man was one of her trusted contacts. Having little knowledge of her network, I didn’t recognize the name at all.
Jack mentioned two other names that his mom had said would help him. One of them, I knew. I promptly reached out to her.
“What kind of help can you provide for Jack?” I asked her, as a parent that is still in the dark. “For instance, if he were to find himself in jail, would you come to his rescue?” I wanted to find out the bottom line.
There was a brief hesitation on the other side, “No, you’re still his dad. It would be your responsibility to help him, not mine. I can make some phone calls, perhaps some financial aid.”
I couldn’t help but express my concerns about Jack inheriting a substantial sum of money from his mom. “You know that my wife and I were separated for many years, and we were even discussing about divorce,” I explained. “She was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and I dropped the divorce process to help her with her treatment. But our financial separation relevant to the divorce still went on and completed. I know she set Jack as her full heir. I worry about a young man with so much money……”
Her tone shifted immediately, her voice tensing up. “We know you’d try to get your hands on the money. Don’t forget the agreement you had with your wife.”
While I was concerned about my son’s safety, she was seeing it as a money game. Again, she is navigating this conversation with a logic that seems natural for her but, for me, seems to come from a different universe.
It became clear that in her eyes, I was the monster, the potential thief of my own son’s inheritance. This revelation was the final nail in the coffin of my efforts to bridge the gap between these two vastly different worlds.
This gap started six years ago when the divorce came to the table. Divorce remains heavily stigmatized within my wife’s ivory tower, especially for the officials like her. She was nothing short of a pop star in her network, while I increasingly immersed myself in my boring career from one company to another.
Our lives fell apart. She thrived in a world of high achievement, parties, and a vibrant social circle. In contrast, my desire to be seen and known had long been replaced by a longing to remain invisible. Our diverging career paths allowed us to stay concealed from each other’s networks. When forced to speak about my family, I’d offer a brief, “We’re okay. She’s very successful in her career.” As for what she said about me, I remained blissfully ignorant.
Throughout her battle with cancer, I did everything in my power to care for her. Despite our divergent lifestyles, we buried the divide and build a strong patient-caregiver dynamic. Her primary treatment took place in China, where her insurance provided the best services in the country. However, the last seven months of her life were spent seeking clinical trials in the United States, with me by her side every step of the way.
As I joined her battle and watched her suffering, I found myself rekindling a deep affection for her that I had thought was lost forever. Those seven months, though painful, also brought us closer than we had been in years. Without them, her passing would have felt like a distant memory, but instead, it now left a profound loss in my life.
Even after her passing, I remained an outsider in her world. I had assumed that I would handle the post-death arrangements, including eulogies and death compensation — a substantial amount due to her high rank in the organization. However, a representative from her employer informed me that she had assigned all these responsibilities to our son Jack. They made it abundantly clear that anything regarding to the compensation would remain undisclosed to me, urging me to respect the agreement my wife and I had made. To my astonishment, what was meant to be a private matter had now become a public affair. And everyone in the other world seems to be eager to use it to slap my face.
The writing is on the wall for them. I am the monster in this other world. I guess the seeds of this perception have been sown during our divorce proceedings. On one side of the divorce, everyone in her network was rooting for her, so I must be the monster on the other side.
This revelation ultimately sheds light on several perplexing moments when I had to interact with my wife’s network. One memory had lingered in my thoughts for years. She was hospitalized for the first treatment; I was by her side to provide care. One evening, a group of apparently high-ranking officials from her organization came to see her.
In a moment, my wife said to me, “Please step outside. We need to discuss the plans for my treatment.” I went blind for a moment, am I still your husband? Still, I went out.
It now becomes evident that the news of our divorce was already circulated within her network and, in their eyes, a monster had been born.
The irony was, when she was wheelchaired to the medical exams in the days that followed, I was the only one by her side. At times, I couldn’t help but wonder, where are those untouchable planners? An anonymous quote dawned on me,
The stage is crowded when there is a show to demonstrate “The world is full of love”.
More ironic yet, in my own world, which sadly remained the same unknown to my wife, I have more to offer than the label “monster”. A lot more, I am pretty sure. Amid excruciating pain and only a few weeks after my wife’s passing, I had lost a family member with whom I rediscovered love in her last days, watched my son drift away, and grappled with the role cast upon me as monster in a world that I didn’t understand.
Stricken by a sense of insult, I had a moment of impulsive to reach out to all these individuals to seek answers and clarity. However, it soon dawned on me that in this other world, I would remain a monster regardless of my willingness or argument.
In a politically polarized world, we call for conversations to help bridge the gap between people. But what’s the point of doing so in the personal world? If others derived satisfaction from having someone to vilify and stigmatize, if they required a monster or two to fill the void in their lives, then so be it.
Life is woven with perceptions, misperceptions, and the choices we make that only seem rational in our own world. If I happened to be perceived as a “monster” in one world, well, I would keep striving for understanding in the other world where I truly belong. After all, life is too short to worry about the labels others may impose upon me, let alone they come from a world that has no intersection with mine.
I will miss my wife for the rest of my life. I hope this is the only connection to her faraway, enigmatic world. No more.
