As “Yi Yi” reaches its final chapter, we end as we began, at a large family gathering. This time everyone dressed in black. People congregate in small groups. We see conversations at the same discreet distance we’ve watched most of the film. Min-Min pours tea for a group of women sitting in a small circle — characters we haven’t met and likely won’t.

For a film that nearly touches three hours, Edward Yang doesn’t seem very interested in closing every loop. The movie began with the high drama over Yun-Yun, A-Di’s former girlfriend and this spun into a major conflict mid-movie. But Yang is content to let that plot line dissolve.

Likewise, what about Yang-Yang’s infatuation with “the concubine?” Why was he practicing holding his breath under water? Edward Yang sets up big scenes — like the water balloon drop — but also feels free to let anticipated events never happen, or perhaps evolve offscreen, outside our field of vision.

And then there’s the mysterious character named Migo. We don’t hear of him throughout the film, but when the grandmother dies, A-Di calls him — and Migo for some reason voices his responsible for her death. Is he another brother, one conspicuous in his absence? A cousin? The film never directly introduces him. But as we get to the closing scenes at the wake, we are again confronted with Migo, who breaks down and cries “how could you leave us? A-Di and I can’t go on without you!” He wails “come back to us!” as NJ and A-Di pull him away from the casket.

For most films, I would chalk up loose strands like these as continuity errors. But that’s hard to believe in a film as detail oriented and meticulous as “Yi Yi.” I think the looseness of the film’s structure, in places, is fully intentional. Yang seems to be telling us with these disconnected pieces of storytelling that life is filled with distracting elements that can take up our time and attention. And they may be momentarily interesting. But it is his job as director to not get lost in them, to help us keep our focus on what matters in the film.

One plot line that Yang felt obliged to reintroduce was NJ’s workplace. His colleague has a walk and talk with him outside of the funeral home, telling him that Ato, the copycat game developer, has turned out to be a disaster. Gamers are too savvy, he says, and know a rip off when they see one. But Boss Huang, who put up the money, doesn’t seem to care because he’s fallen in love with Ato, a woman who apparently is content to lay around the pool half naked with her angel investor day by day, soaking in her new riches.

He begs NJ to come back to the team. The case he makes, however, isn’t terribly persuasive, as he notes how he has worked his butt off for many years and doesn’t feel satisfied. He tells him that he is never happy. We don’t find out if NJ chooses to return to work, but he is allowed the final word about the matter: if you don’t love what you do, how could you be happy?

And now we move to Yang-Yang’s big moment. We are at the wake, there are only a few people in the funeral hall, and Yang-Yang asks his mom if he can talk to grandma now. She nods yes. He gets in line behind a man who lays a flower on her casket and bows.

We see a picture of the grandmother over the closed casket. Yang-Yang is holding his notebook. He opens it and starts reading.

I’m sorry grandma.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to you.

I think all the stuff I could tell you …

You must already know.

Otherwise, you wouldn’t always tell me to “Listen!”

They all say you’ve gone away.

But you didn’t tell me where you went.

I guess it’s someplace you think I should know.

But, Grandma, I know so little.

Do you know what I want to do when I grow up?

I want to tell people things they don’t know.

Show them stuff they haven’t seen.

It’ll be so much fun.

Perhaps one day … I’ll find out where you’ve gone.

If I do, can I tell everyone and bring them to visit you?

Grandma, I miss you. Especially when I see …

my newborn cousin who still doesn’t have a name.

He reminds me that you always said you felt old.

I want to tell him that I feel I am old too.

The piano theme plays. We fade to black.

These are the final words in “Yi Yi.” Sadly, they are also the final words of Edward Yang’s short but remarkable cinematic career. Edward Yang died shortly before his 60th birthday from cancer.

Throughout the film, Yang shows restraint, keeping the camera from revealing everything, watching conversations from outside buildings, through glass. He lets details capture our attention, then release them from it.

To wrap up, he lets an eight year old boy explain what it’s been all about. Edward Yang wanted us to see Taipei, the city he loved, in a specific time and place through the experiences of an unremarkable family, people dealing with simple issues of growing up, falling in love, dealing with disappointment and longing — trying to find meaning.

Arguably, none of them actually find that meaning. They just do as Yang-Yang does, they get a little older.

Edward Yang is showing us the thing we often miss in life — that just living another day, waking up with that entirely new thing ahead of us — is all we need in life. We just have to see it, recognize it, and, as Ota told NJ in one of the film’s indelible moments, not fear it.