This morning, I called my mom and said.. "Mom, every year mooncake festival, I always miss grandma."
Mooncake festival... it has always been a time when I'll never forget. I'll always miss my grandma every time during this time of the year the most. I'll always be reminded that life is so fragile this time every year.
Exactly 13 years ago, my dad asked my grandma (the only grandparent that I had during that time) to come to our house for dinner together, a family dinner. Still able to walk, still seems healthy, still talking and having dinner together. Two days later, when my dad was outstation, a phone rang break the dawn silence. In the dark, with my ears, I heard my mom took the car keys, the beep unlock sound of my mom's car, the sound of the gate opened, and the sound of her driving off. I knew.. something is not right. I was pretending to sleep and waiting for my mom to come back. She left for almost 2 hours. The phone rang at 4am plus.
The moment when she was back, she said.. "Change your clothes now. Grandma had passed away already."
I was just 13 years old. Just entered secondary school.
I asked, "Why? What happened? What happened to grandma? I thought we just had dinner together two days ago?"
My mom said, "We all suspected that she got a heart attack." My mom told me the whole process of what happened. She then called my dad immediately to ask him to come back from his business trip.
My siblings and I changed obediently, we were sent to our auntie's house while the adults were settling all the funeral stuff.
I obeyed, I was still young. Scared. Never expected that I wouldn't be able to see my grandma again. The time when my auntie said my grandma's house is ready. We were asked to change our clothes to all white and my auntie sent us to her house. With the gate wide open, all the relatives all gathered. I went into the house, where I saw her body. My dad was back, sitting at the feet of my grandma, and burn paper money. (I wasn't a Christian back then, and my parents aren't Christians too.) His eyes were red, wet.
The reason why I remembered it so clearly, because the next day was my lunar birthday, and the following day was my dad's lunar birthday. My family has a tradition of celebrating lunar birthdays. It was my first time spending my birthday with so many relatives around me, in a funeral. It was my first time spending my dad's lunar birthday at the burial ground. We stayed in my grandma's house throughout the whole funeral, until the burial.
All these memories seem still very fresh in my mind. It seems like just yesterday. Life is indeed so fragile. With her still alive at one time, and the next second she's gone. Is it really the way that she wants us to remember her?
Well, it really does make me remember about her every single year, during mooncake festival.
