After his comrade fell, he cared for his friend's parents for twelve years

The year I met Lao Xu, he had already spent twelve years being a "son" to the parents of a comrade who had died in service.

The story goes back to 2012. Lao Xu and Tao Jun served in the same company, slept in bunks one above the other, and shouldered together the most dangerous stretch of dike in a flood. The night before Lao Xu left the army, Tao Jun talked about home: he was an only son; his father had been left disabled by a workplace accident years before; his mother's health was poor too. "The two of them are what I can't set my mind at rest about."

The next year, Tao Jun did not come back from a rescue mission.

After the memorial service, Lao Xu didn't say much. He simply showed up at Tao Jun's parents' door that Spring Festival, arms full of gifts. The old couple stood frozen a long while as the tall, thin young man called out "Uncle, Auntie," then said with red eyes: "From now on, I'll spend New Year's Eve with you."

He kept that sentence for twelve years.

In twelve years Lao Xu moved house three times and changed jobs twice, but every New Year's Eve he appeared at that door, unshakable. The old couple's medications were written in his notebook, more carefully than a birth son would keep them: the father's heart medication must never run out; the mother's blood pressure pills before meals. The first emergency contact in the elders' phones was his number. When the father had a stent operation, Lao Xu signed the forms; when the mother fell ill in the small hours and was rushed to the hospital, he was the one running front to back. The hospital nurses took him for the real son — until once they heard him say "Uncle." The old couple's explanation was offhand: "An adopted son — closer than a birth one."

And Lao Xu's own life? His wife works with my wife, and once said something I've remembered ever since: "I knew about the promise before we married. I asked him — this burden could be decades. Are you sure? He said, Tao Jun gave his life. What I'm giving is time. What is there to think about?"

After their daughter was born, the New Year gathering took the shape of three generations: Grandpa and Grandma — Tao Jun's parents — in the seats of honor, Lao Xu and his wife cooking and serving, the little granddaughter running back and forth between the two grandpas. The old man taught her chess; the old woman braided her hair. The neighbors assumed they were one family. That, Lao Xu said, was exactly the point — the old need the thought that the family is still whole, and that thought works better than medicine.

On other people's lips, responsibility is morality. On your own shoulders, it is simply the thing to do each day.

The year before last, the old man passed, peacefully. At the end he held Lao Xu's hand and said, "All these years — it's been hard on you." He also left him an envelope. Inside was a note, one line: "Jun was entrusted to the right person."

Lao Xu still visits the old woman twice a month. His daughter has grown used to calling her Grandma. Someone asked how long he meant to keep it up. He paused, and asked back: "Keep it up? Go look after your own mother for a while. Would you call that keeping it up?"

Twelve years ago on that New Year's Eve, when he knocked on that door, perhaps it really was "honoring a promise." Twelve years on, the promise has grown into family. You can no longer tell which part is loyalty and which part is love.