Monday, January 26, 2009
10:00 pm
My grandfather died of a heart attack early this morning…
… and it seems as if I cannot find the right words to express whatever it is I’m feeling right now….
I can do a Scarlett O’Hara impersonation and say, “I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow.” but I feel like I would be doing the kindest man I have ever known a great dishonor.
I look around the apartment and I feel emptiness. Nothing in it had any memory of my grandfather. Everything – from the number of books I have that lay cluttered everywhere to the photo frames that house recent pictures - feels inconsequential and unreal because he had never touched nor seen any of them. Even I have no memory of him in this place. There is nothing here but well, nothingness.
I had cried an ocean when my mother told me what had happened. I called my dad and cried. I talked to my aunt and cried. I told my best friend and cried. And now, there is nothing left but numbness…
… and remorse.
My summers as a little girl were filled with memories of him. Every day, he sat on an old wooden bench in front of his general store, watching and observing passers-by and making conversations with people he has practically known all his adult life. At times, I also sat there with him and listened to such conversations or watched the goings-on with him while fanning myself senseless to battle the scorching heat. He often made lunch especially for me, always asking me what I wanted to eat. He always ate alone, before everybody else does, so I used to watch him eat his noodle soup or his rice congee with chopsticks, amazed by his speed and the slurping sounds he made as he ate. And every night, I played store with him and my grandmother. I found stuff around their house, put them up on display on my makeshift store with my grandma’s help and sold everything to him one by one. In return, he paid me imaginary currency.
I don’t feel remorse because I didn’t love him enough. On the contrary, I loved him a great deal. Did I mention that he was the kindest man I have ever known? One could not help but love him. He was tranquility and contentment in the flesh. He was happy with living a simple, quiet life in a small town with the people he loved most. From the years I’ve known him, he was always content, never wanting. If anything, the only wanting he was ever did was for his children and grandchildren to be safe, happy, and living good lives. My dad, I have noticed, is like him in that perspective.
There are times when I wish I had inherited that quality from him. Unfortunately and to my parents’ despair, it seems that the only thing I have inherited from him is his penchant for cigarettes. In a way, I am his total opposite as while he was always satisfied with his life, I am always desperately wanting.
Earlier tonight, friends asked me the same question several times, “Were you and your grandfather close?” Several times, I paused and inwardly asked myself “Were we?” before I answered. I always answered: “Yes, we were.” But I think the more fitting response should had been, ”We used to be then private school happened, I grew up to be the self-serving, insensitive brat I am now, and I stopped being his granddaughter.” And that is where the remorse is coming from.
There is regret because despite of all the chances I have had, I cannot remember a time when I actually told or shown him that I loved him, never once. There is regret because the last time I saw him years back, I spent like five minutes talking to him, not understanding the words he was uttering because of his Chinese accent; and because in those years following, I didn’t even bother to write him a letter telling him that I loved and missed him.
And now, I won’t be able to…
I thought about him two days ago. I distinctly remember walking down the hallway, suddenly thinking that when I finish school and finally get a job, I’ll save up enough money to go back home for a holiday and spoil him rotten with gifts like he did to me when I was little. I like to think now that maybe that was his way of saying goodbye.
There’s a deep sense of nostalgia now. I wonder if in those recent years, he thought of me and felt sad because I haven’t called him up to say hello. I wonder if I had hurt his feelings because I kept him out of my life, however unintentional. I wonder if he had felt alone and lonely and maybe even unwanted.
I hope he never felt that way. I hope that maybe the only reason why I haven’t kept in touch with him was because I was procrastinating, because I figured that if we don’t get a chance to catch up and say our hellos and goodbyes, he would actually stay with us longer. It’s like if I still have all these things that need doing, I would have more time to actually do them. I truly hope that that’s it because the alternative – that I just didn’t care for anything but myself – isn’t something he deserved.
I think about the afterlife. Is there such thing? I’m skeptic but I'm hopeful, if that makes any sense. We would never see or speak to each other again in this lifetime, my grandfather and I, but I hope that we will see each other in the next life and I will get another chance to talk to him again.
