It was a raining morning at five. The sky was enveloped in darkness. The thick clouds gathered black. I was woken up by a phone call, “ Hurry up to your grandfather’s house.” My mind went completely blank. “ He is waiting for you.” I had a sinking feeling.

I dropped the phone and rushed out of the door. It felt as though a  million ice-cold raindrops poured on me and blurred my visions. The raced heartbeat made me unable to breathe, but I didn’t have time to care about it. I must keep running in order to see my grandfather the last time even though my legs were numb and I was shivering in the cold air.

I staggered upstairs seeing everybody waiting for me. They kneeled on the ground around my grandfather, he was lying on the door plank, which as a tradition, the dying lies on the door plank in the dining room. I walked to him, trembling and went down on my knees. He still had breath left at the moment I got there. I froze there and afraid to look at him. The rainwater dropped from my hair and coat-tailors to the floor. “ Da-da.”

“Grandpa, it’s me. I’m here.” I sound raucously.

I held his chilled hand in my palm. My heart was gripped when I saw the tears hung in his canthus. His whole body was hollow and bony under the torment of disease. He struggling opened the mouth, “Ah-ahh.”  I leaned my head toward him to listen what he was trying to say. However, the word stuck in his throat. His eyes looked straight on the ceiling. Then the sound stopped.

My world collapsed like at the moment of an earthquake. The tears flowed like a flood. As I screamed out “grandpa”, the whole room was inundated in cries. Every cry was there to leave on him, but he would not answer anymore. I was pulled out of the room by my dad at the end. All the memories swarmed into my mind and an endless sadness surrounded me.

The sadness did not sustain for a long time since we all accepted the truth. After my grandfather passed away, I went to school normally.  My life has not changed a lot, but a little more regret. Which I did not accompany him more and did not realize how much he wanted to see me when he misses me. The words he failed to tell me become my greatest regret. The feeling of losing starts at the bottom of my stomach, then permeate into every part of my life. I would not notice it intentionally, but it comes out every time when I think my grandfather should be here. It is in my grandmother’s longing eyes, in the bracelet I kitted for him, and in the huge family photo album.

Sometimes he comes back in my dreams. In it, he says “Goodbye.”