Author: Lina Li
"People talk about the courage of cancer patients, and I do not deny that courage. I have been poked and stabbed and poisoned for years, and still I trod on" (Green, The Fault In Our Stars, 91). Cancer could sound so big to how people started taking it as something which might not even happen around them or to them. Living with a "creature" who slowly eats up the rest of one’s body, the amount of will and determination in cancer patients is hard to be described with simple words. For Guo Xiaobin, he had that power inside him. Despite cancer stabbing him repeatedly, he still lived a peaceful and memorable life.
32 years old Xiaobin and his daughter
Xiaobin wasn’t doing so well at absorbing the knowledge the school had to offer and dropped out of high school. Naughty yet a bit miserable, he did what other high school dropouts in Hohhot did - at the young age of 19, Xiaobin gave up the road of studying and joining the army. He spent his next six years in the military, except for meeting his future wife, nothing really significant happened. In 1985, A year after Xiaobin got out of the army, he got married, and together the couple had a cute daughter.
However, years later, the love in this family started fading, and fights along with arguments could be heard every day in that house. Not long after, Xiaobin and his wife divorced. His wife, together with his daughter, left him. As a middle-aged man with a teared-up family, Xiaobin had to make money depending on himself, and the pressure of life was back on his shoulders again. Instead, this time, without a loving family supporting and motivating him. He applied for many jobs, but most were denied because of his poor educational background. For a period of time, all Xiaobin did was hang out with his friends every day, at the same time started drinking and smoking a lot. Luckily, Xiaobin met another person, Lili. Lili was the owner of a senior college, and she offered Xiaobin a job opportunity at that senior college. With more and more contact each day, the two fell in love quickly. They got married in the summer of 1996, and Xiaobin's world finally brightened up again.
The senior college of inner Mongolia that Lili and Xiaobin owned, Lili currently speaking
The habit of smoking and drinking that Xiaobin had still wasn't cut off. Who would have thought this could be a problem? Xiaobin's body was forced to a point of extreme with all these years of unhealthy habits. March 23rd, 2015, which should've been a typical health examination day, became the day that changed Xiaobin's life. He was diagnosed with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, a type of terminal liver cancer. The cancer was discovered too late, and doctors said Xiaobin could only live for another six months. By when this time goes, his body would be too weak to keep him from staying alive.
When the message came out, no one believed it. How could someone with a peaceful life be dying within six months? There was also no surgery assigned to him since the stage was already terminal, any surgery at this stage would only be beating a dead horse in the hope that it would run once more, with no help but wasting money. Depression almost immediately hit Xiaobin. For weeks, he did nothing. No social contact, no more hanging out with his friends, and not even heading outdoors. His life for those weeks was just in the hospital, taking chemo, staring at the ceiling, and surrounded by deafening silence.
However, as time went on, Xiaobin realized that being depressed and doing nothing was for sure not a solution. He had already done too many things in his life that he regretted, and he is not doing it again. After getting out of the hospital, according to doctors, he has only three more months to live until cancer defeats him, but Xiaobin does not give up. He wanted to do something and be someone whom others could remember. With great perseverance, he successfully cut out alcohol, cigarettes, and started traveling around china.
Xiaobin at Tibet, 2018
Within two months, Xiaobin traveled to multiple places around China. From the north to the east, south to the west. Miraculously, his cancer started resting, no longer consuming his body. Years ago, while Xiaobin was traveling, he mentioned:" I traveled around because I want to, instead of traveling on purpose to kill cancer. I am normal. I have no cancer, and I’m just someone enjoying life." After four months of traveling, he went back to Hohhot for chemo. At this point, he had already lived a month more than what the doctors said. No one knew how this was possible, but everyone was surprised. After all kinds of checkups and cancer treatments, Xiaobin decided to go back home and try something else: painting.
Xiaobin had never studied art of any form, yet he still challenged himself. Xiaobin self-taught techniques of traditional Chinese painting and started imitating famous pieces in traditional Chinese painting. At this point, cancer stopped bothering him, just like how he ignored cancer. People almost forgot that he was a cancer patient because of how chilled and normal he looked compared to other people with the same struggle.
The Wild Pig, Drawn by Xiaobin after 3 years of self teaching; The Dancing Couple drawn by Xiaobin
Xiaobin continued his life. To him, this was a chance fate gave him to fix his mistakes and leave the world with no regret. Xiaobin did it. With his will, he lived six more years with cancer than expected. At this point, it doesn’t matter if he will beat cancer or attempt to outlive it a dozen more years longer. Xiaobin has already got what he wanted. He had witnessed how powerful one’s will could be, done all these new things he either hadn’t had time or strength to do, and simply, he lived this part of his life with no regrets left.
Painting drawn by Xiaobin, with the words, "as the magpie arrives, so comes the luck"
A few more peaceful years passed, and at the same time, without noticing, cancer slowly ate up Xiaobin's body. In the cold winter of 2021, Hohhot, Xiaobin passed away at the age of 62. Lying in his bed with his love and his family standing beside him, appreciating the simple yet incredible life this man had lived.
"Hope I was one of them", Xiaobin once joked