“Do you have any regret thing?” Everytime someone ask me like that, I always answer, “Yes, of course, I have.”
After my grandpa’s death, our family dropped into an eddy of sadness.
My mom cried as quiet as possible at midnight several times, and I could wake up when I heard her cry. Because I was sad, too.
I really loved my grandpa. That year when I was five, I caught a fever that continued for a whole week. And my grandparents came to take care of me. From that time, they spent 11 years accompanying with me until my grandpa got cancer and died.
There was 8 years after his death. Many memories I couldn’t remember in detail, just some fragments. But I remembered he smiled warmly almost all the time, and because of that, in a long time I thought he was a positive old man.
I had a lot of happy times with my grandpa. Every spring, we would go to pick the tender leaves of Chinese toon. That was the time I really like. Because that means I could have the fried leaves at dinner! The branches of toon trees shook gently in the spring breeze. The smell of wet soil within the fresh air came into my nose. I tried to pick them by myself, my grandpa held me up to help me reach the shaking tender leaves. I laughed loudly when I got a bunch of leaves. Looked at the happy girl, he said with a big smile, “pick that one! Fried these leaves for you, okay?” “Great!!!” Then I would try harder to get more.
Every autumn, the persimmon tree in front of our house bore fruits. The persimmons on the tree had the orange sheen and they were even bigger than my small hands, seemed really juicy. Absolutely, we picked the persimmons also. My grandpa liked to make mischief with me, picked one and threw it to me. He knew it was hard for me to catch it. But he still did that, because he liked to see how I ran for catching them like a little rabbit.
He also taught me a lot of things. He told me how to use the magnifying glass to heat something by refracting sunlight, he taught me to remember the multiplication table, he helped me with calligraphy, and he encouraged me to express my own thoughts by writing.
He knew I loved writing stories by using my imagination when I was a little girl. He believed I can write great stories he had never seen, even though some of my families said it was waste my time to do that. He said, “she just wants to do what she wants to do”.
When I had some interesting ideas, I would tell him first. He loved the ideas in my brain, always told me, “just write it, little Maggie, write everything you want to write”. If I had any signs of progress, he would spare no expense in praising me, “You’re really talented”.
I remembered one day he held a book named The Enchanted Castle and told me hopefully, “I hope you can publish a book which was written by you like this one day”. Stared at his eyes, I saw something was shining.
He knew everything about me, and trusted me, supported me all the time, no matter how young I was. We played together, studied together, and laughed together. I really liked to be with my grandpa. Almost all the happy memories in my childhood were brought by him.
But sometimes I was confused that why this such a perfect person who knew such lots of knowledge in different fields-he even could teach me Japanese-seemed a little bit sad when he was alone. But I chose to ignore this confusing thing and never asked him. I thought everything was ok because of his smiles.
Actually, I never know about my grandpa.
Why did I say that?
Because that day, I woke up because of my mom’s cry. By the moonlight, I could see there were some letters on the desk beside my grandpa’s belongings. Out of curiosity, I opened and read them.
All the memories came flooding back to me suddenly.
At that time, even at that time, I knew he had a depressive disorder.
I was shocked and shuddered. God knew how regret I felt that I discovered his unusual emotions in fact when he was alive, but I did nothing. I even thought he was a positive person as I wanted to think. Didn’t thought about he smiled just because he wanted his family happy. I never tried to help him or just gave him some comfort and concern. I did nothing with that although he accompanied me for many years. I allowed the disease got worse and worse, and finally, let it cause cancer.
If I had another chance, maybe I could pay attention to him, let him express his real feelings.
If I had another chance, maybe I could persuade him to go to see a psychologist and go there with him as he used to do.
If I had another chance, maybe I could help him feel better and own real happiness.
If I had another chance, maybe I could really know about him.
If I had another chance, maybe I could save his life.
If I had another chance…
But the truth is, now, I do not have anymore.
