Grandma

My grandma was gone last week. She tripped over some rock and got a stroke. It happened suddenly and I had no time to say goodbye.

I'm not close to any of my grandparents but she's the closest. She lived in a small village and my parents live in the town. So I only visit her during breaks or festivals. She sometimes visited us with various product she grew by herself. But she never stayed long since the village is what her life is about. When I visited her, she served me all kinds of food and snacks. When I was playing around the village, in the mountain or down the river or in some cousin's house, she would call my name to go home for the next meal. I normally ate 5 or 6 meals at her place per day. Filling grandkids' stomach seemed to be one of her hobbies.

She had 8 kids and was a hard-working mother. Mum told me when she's young, when the hungry year came, grandma did all she could to feed them. She was once a daughter of a good family. But time was once very hard for everyone of her time. I only heard about that but never experienced so I could not tell how hard that is. All I know is she lived through lots' of hard times.

I could not help wondering, what did she look like when she's young? what's a normal day looked like when she's a girl? what's her life's most important days? I would never know. She never went to the school and she had no photos from her young age. I did not talk with her often. Even when we talked, we talked very simply. I was glad I called her this new year. She could not hear me very well then but she finally figured out who I was.

She's gone on a full moon day. She might have gone up to the sky. She might have gone up to where the moonlight comes from. She's going to stay there peacefully watching over her husband and kids.