‘I cooked your favourite dish today’: China grandmother, 82, still makes meals for dead husband, puts his photo by dining table
- Elderly woman fills bowl of food bigger than hers for absent loved-one
- Granddaughter says it is just normal day, not special occasion
A video of an 82-year-old woman in China dishing up dinner for her late husband two decades after he died has moved mainland social media observers to tears.
The touching scene, which was recorded by a surveillance camera in her flat in Chongqing in southwestern China, shows the elderly woman eating by herself at home.
She is seen filling a bowl with much more food than she has served in her own bowl and putting it on the table next to hers.
Pausing for a second, the octogenarian places a photo of an old man beside the table. She amends the position of the picture several times until she is satisfied, then begins eating her meal while looking at the image.
The man is the woman’s husband who died 23 years ago, and the day of the video recording was not a celebration or the anniversary of his death, just another ordinary day, according to her granddaughter, surnamed Guo.
“I felt the warmth of her love but also heartache for my grandma when I saw this,” Guo said.
The video clip has received 2 million likes on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, with many being moved by the elderly woman’s love for and devotion to the memory of her late husband.
“While eating, she might be chatting to her late husband and saying: ‘Sweetie, come on eat. I cooked your favourite dish today. Everything is well and there is good news I’d like to share with you,’” wrote one person on Douyin.
“When I was a little child, I saw my grandma also prepare a bowl of rice for my grandpa who had already passed away and I said my grandma was just wasting food. I am a grown-up now and I understand how much she must have missed him,” another wrote.
Moving stories between couples often trend on mainland social media.
Last month, a man in central China’s Hunan province arranged a wedding day for his wife 14 years after they had married.
They had not celebrated properly back then because of financial constraints. He said he wanted to show his love and appreciation to her for standing by him through tough times.
In the same month, a video of a woman in eastern China’s Shandong province was released on social media that showed her cycling three kilometres at midnight to deliver food to her beloved husband.
