Aug. 12, 2021 — My Grandpa

Today my phone reminds me of a photo. It was the last time I saw my grandfather (my father’s father). It was in Feb 2019, the winter vacation during my junior year while I was exchanging in Korea. I came back to China for the spring festival and went to Sichuan, to visit my grandfather, who was in his 90s and got terminal bedsores, being taken care of and treated in my uncle’s hospital. It was a sunny and warm day that winter. My father took him outdoors in the yard of the hospital to get some sunshine for the first time since he was laying in bed for months. My sister-in-law took her two-year-old baby to visit him too. Five of us spent such an afternoon and I captured this scene of my father was cutting his hair.

Before he passed away, he already didn’t remember many of us for two or three years, except my father and my grandmother. Since I was very little, going back to my father’s hometown to visit him every spring festival was the immutable tradition of my family for his advanced age (my father got a very close connection with him that he would go visit him during every summer vacation also – my dad is an educator). But he was very healthy until recent years. I still remember every time we left his house, his eyes would be filled with tears. He had a very good temper and was always that amiable and careful with every family member. He’d give me the most red envelopes every time and kindly call my nickname. I love every winter’s spring festival memory with him while he was alive.

Four months later, I got a sudden phone call from my parents while I was miles away abroad. I couldn’t make it to his funeral for my summer semester would start soon. It was one of the most regretful moments of my life. That July, I dreamt of him. In my dream, he was not that painful for the disease, probably because I couldn’t bear to watch him suffer. When I woke up that afternoon, the first thing that came to my mind was he was not in this world anymore.

During the pandemic, these two years I couldn’t go to visit his grave during the spring festival. I hope I can go there to visit him someday.

“What’s remembered, lives”. I’ll forever miss him in my life.