My Grandpa, the Time Traveller
by Reizou Tachikawa on Aug.11, 2009, under General
I watch you, surrounded by these pale grey walls of the ward, painting pictures of your past grandeur in the Emergency of decades past.
Your arms;hands;body tell the story like it was happening at that very moment in time!
“I worked hard for them. Didn’t you know that? The British commended me for my valiant efforts!” you said in Malay, as you carried on narrating your story with your weathered voice.
You suddenly stop.
I watch you, as your thin and bony palms hold the warm teh susu up to your cracked lips.
I’ve only noticed it, but you’ve lost so much weight!
You silently but gently sip it, closing your worn and tired eyes as you savour the refreshing aroma and the warm liquid flowing gently into your body.
Your face relaxes as you proceed to place the Styrofoam cup back onto the wooden table.
You take a deep breath, and carry on telling your story.
The surroundings fade out of focus as I saw your face smiling…
I’m so sorry grandpa. I’m so sorry for not being there when I could have.
sigh.
I’ve been lost in myself for a long, long time. Blinded by the ideals of how I should be; how I should appear to be.
I reminisce through to those times when you cracked jokes, whilst I was having lunch during my lunch breaks with you and Grandma.
I reminisce to those times when you’d always go for your 6pm jogs.
I reminisce those times.
I can only.
Looking at you from this chair I’m sitting in, I look at how you seem oblivious to the fact that you were reliving a moment in time that was long past.
But you seem so happy; almost child-like!
It pains me to see this; yet almost instantaneously thrown back by the fact that you can find so much happiness and joy in that moment in time.
As much as your memory hath faltered, you still find ways to break through it.
I watch you… surrounded by these pale grey walls of the ward, painting pictures of your past grandeur in the Emergency of decades past.
It is you, my grandpa. The Time Traveller.
And I salute you, Grandpa.
I Salute You.
..and I still love you, no matter what.
