When she was twenty-odd years old, my mum came to this county, adjoining to hers
. Here she married my father after her grandmother’s will, while leaving his mother, my grandmother, to her elder sister at home, my aunt.
As she, as well as my father, was born in a traditional environment. Every year
no matter how engaged they were, somehow they all managed to go back to visit my
grandmother one or two times. That time as the intercourse between the two counties was awfully poor, so they had but to choose bicycle. The distance was far,
but they had never complained about it.
Later on, when we grew up, the going- home party, which was composed of two people, now accumulated to five. Our vehicle was still bicycle. The different part was just three bicycles were needed, my mother and I one, my father and my brother one, and my sister one. It must be a spectacular view, now by recalling I couldn’t help but to wonder.
The journey was always interesting. On the way my father often narrated things happened when he was in army, we were so engaged in his story that the hot and stuffy, or cold and dry weather in summer or winter all became neglectable. It wasalways so much fun.
So was it when we arrived at our grandmother’s house. She was a kind, mild old
woman, always with a smile on her face. It was hence unforgettable to meet her.
Oh, and her magic box. We didn’t know how she can do it, but every time when we arrived there, she would bring something tasty out from the box, like nuts, candies, and animal-shaped cookies.
She may have stored them for a long time, now I suppose, because some of the candies had already melted when she tucked them into our hands. And the cookies, most of them had ceased to be crisp. But you know, that time we were too happy to
care all this. We would just hold them carefully in our hands, and run outside
to show off in front of the neighboring kids.
My grandmother was a window ever since I could remember. But she insisted on living alone, though my aunt once suggested that she should live with her family. She would turn it down whenever it was brought up, by saying living with them was
just too inconvenient and troublesome for her to bear.
So until she passed away last year, she still lived alone. Her grave was set next to her husband, my grandfather, according to her will. That moment it came to
her children that how lonely she may have felt during the past few years. But by
means of stubbornness she pretended that she was ok all the time.
I remember my mother once persuaded her to our home during one Spring Festival.
But she didn’t stay here long, which I still feel sorry today. What kind of world was she in, sometimes I wonder. She was deafening because of age, she can’t
go up and down stairs alone, and she even ceased to understand how the TV programs were so fun that made us burst out laughing.
Yes, I couldn’t understand all this until last winter when I was home. That day
I was watching TV in the sitting room, when my mother came upstairs to call me
up for dinner. I replied back loudly in the room, by telling her that I would go
downstairs in a minute, and now I was watching TV. But apparently she didn’t hear me, for she came to ask me again.
All of a sudden I felt so awful about all this, for years coming by, I had always refused to admit that I myself were growing up, and my mother was getting older and older. But the moment when she came and said to me that her ears were deafening, I came to realize that no matter how reluctantly I was willing to accept,
all this was happening all the time.
Aging, in this way, isn’t the most awful thing on earth, especially when it happens on our family members? Yesterday when I paid a visit to my sister, she once
again told me that one friend of her colleague was killed by accident the other
day .I hate all this, really. I mean, life seems so vulnerable in this sense,and you can do nothing except for accepting it passively.
I am not pessimistic person. But in front of what’s going on around me every single day, sometimes I couldn’t help but to ponder and be saddened. My sister said that she had got used to it. But I can not. Oftentimes I feel I should at least do something, anything but to sit and wait.
Helen Keller, in her book of Three Days to See, said that it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die tomorrow. She presumed accordingly
that such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life and make us live each day with gentleness, vigor, and keenness of appreciation.
So from now on rather than entangling myself in this question, shouldn’t I learn to buoy myself up? Life is but a span. If I can not prevent it from fading away, at least I should try to make good use of it, learn to appreciate and treasure what it offers us. Many should have not been neglected.
Caroline.