How losing someone close to you can make you grow up overnight, on loss, translated…
Ever since I could recall, there were, a pair of elderly brothers who lived on the floor above us, they followed their father, after China fell to the Communists to Taiwan as refugees, I’d called them “Grandpa Elder” and “Grandpa Second”.
not my silhoutte…
The two of them didn’t have ANY families here in Taiwan, they’d treated me as if I were their grandson. Grandpa Elder had taught the history courses in Kaohsiung Technical High School, after he’d retired, he’d had nothing else to do, so, he’d taken the time, to educate me to read, to write, to teach me calligraphy, told me the stories by the chapters in the ancient novels; he’d often pulled me to watch the Pekingese operas with him, and watched me model after the characters on television, doing the flips. After I’d started school, he would, revise my essays, and would from time to time, stuffed some allowances into my pockets, so I can buy the snacks, and he’d become, this safe harbor when I’d done something wrong and my parents had, punished me. the time spent with Grandpa Elder became a very precious time in my childhood years.
As I was in the fifth grade, Grandpa Elder was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer, he was taken to Pingdong Hospital, and each and every time I’d gone to visit, I’d just felt, that he’d become, frailer than before, it’s as if, I’m sitting, opposite, of a life that’s slowly, withering away. Back then, I’d not completely understood, what death would take from me, what I’d ended up, losing at the very end.
As I’d started the sixth grade, Grandpa Elder passed away, on the day of the funeral, I’d, paced outside the temporary tent by the roads, and, stumbled, unknowingly, into the tent, the moment I saw his coffin, I was, very shocked. That became, the very FIRST time, that I’d come to understand, that in a few steps, I will be, face to face, with someone who’s’ so familiar to me, but someone whom, I will, NEVER see again. I’d stood dumbfounded for a very long time, and, the moments we’d shared, all, came rushing back up to the surfaces of my mind.
not my photograph…
Grandpa Second kneeled before the shrine, with both arms on the floors, slightly trembling shoulders, and followed along, as the announcers read out the eulogies, and he’d started, shaking, even harder. He’d started, weeping then, then, wailed aloud, and in the end, blood came out of him, and everybody rushed to his side, took him into rest.
I can never forget that afternoon, that Grandpa Second leaned, against the chair, with his head, half tilted upward, with the tissues to stop his nose bleed, clenched tightly to my hands, worked hard to tell me, “Grandpa Elder won’t be able to play with you anymore!”
At that very moment, I’d understood, that my childhood was, over.
So, this, is the IMPACT of death on someone’s childhood, and, this young child had the love and cares and concerns, as well as the lessons these two elderly men had taught him in his earlier years of life, which impacted him so, and, the day that childhood ended for him, was the day of the funeral, of the older of the two elderly men who were this young boy’s neighbors…
Life, the Obstacle Course 