Journal lingqi's Journal: August 28th, 2004 1
August 28th, 2004 (9:04pm)
I am getting so late these days...
Yesterday I was reminded of a story from a long time ago (for me, not in a "age of the universe" scale), I figure I might as well write it down here, though I doubt I will forget it.
About 11 years ago, when I was a whee boy of 13, I took the immigration trip from China to the US with my father. The trip was by train from Nanjing to Shanghai, and the flight was from Shanghai to San Francisco with a long layover in Narita, and then from San Francisco to Lafayette LA (via layover somewhere, but I completely forget the details).
In retrospect, it was really a huge turning point in life for all of us. Like salmons that expend all their energy swimming upstream to their destinations, my family also exhausted all our puny little savings and we did not move away from that destination for many years after that. My first ride in the airplane after that said trip was not to be maybe five years later. To return to china for a visit was downright impossible for about that long too, and I think it was six years later did any of us get a chance to go.
It was, if I remember it right, a sunny winter day when we were scheduled to depart. The sun shone cheerfully, pierecing through the occasional clouds and the steam rising from the trains, in harmony with my own excitement. At that time, or even times after, I have never much considered the true gravity of what such a trip entailed, but rather only what was in the immediate future - an exciting adventure on an airplane (never rode airplane before), and it was an _international_ trip! I was finally going to see my mother after a year and half. And I was the envy of my classmates because I was going to America. Such thoughts filled my mind.
The sun shone... brightly, it shone. It, too, was happy for me.
Many of my aunts and uncles came to say goodbye. My grandmother (father's side) was also there. She was born a long time ago. 1910, I believe. That was a time that I can hardly even imagine: airplane had not been invented and horses were still a primary form of transportation. Women in china were still not taught how to read and write, and the practice of feet-binding, though becoming unpopular, still had cults following. Unfortunately my grandmother was subjected to both of these relic dogmas and had bound feet and was illiterate as well.
With our huge suitcases loaded, I was waiving goodbye to everyone with a big smile. I was happy and I know it was showing and I was glad that it was radiating. I felt like I was just like the sun shining above, beaming rays of happiness all around. I wore that big smile while I ran back and forth, saying good bye and checking our seat and making a rukus with my cousin while in anxious anticipation for the train's departure.
My grandmother was in the middle of the group, and I saw a glitter on her face. The bright sunshine refracted off a teardrop on her wrinkled face, and glittered for an instant before it trickled away. Her face bore the expression of some kind of unspoken sorrow, but she was trying to smile. She told me to come closer, and walked to me with those tiny, strained steps. Crying, she bid me various things - you know, those things that grandparents bid a young boy that is about to have his life changed but he dosen't quite know it yet. I listened half-heartedly, half wondering why she is crying, and half hoping that she would finish so I can stop listening to "things I already knew."
She actually didn't carry on for so long, maybe only three or four sentences, though for me at that time, it was already an eternity. I felt somewhat inapproporiate to put on that big smile while in front of her, but hiding it took a very strong effort - I was happy and it was difficult for a child to hide happiness. When she finished, the smile resurfaced before I even finished bidding my hurried farewell, and I went off, smiling, not much thinking of all that I am leaving behind, onto the train.
The train departed, and I look back onto the platform and those who came that was fast fading into the distance, and another glitter on my grandmother's face as she hopelessly walked alongside the train. Those tiny steps in no match for the train that was already going quite fast, she, and the glitter, disappeared in the distance. I still smiled happily, the journey is finally beginning, I thought.
I have not seen my grandmother since that day. She passed away while we were abroad and I was not even able to go to her funeral. Now, all that is ever left as a proof of her existance is a lonely cement grave on a hillside.
When I think of her now, I invariably recalls those glittering tears. And that short farewell during which now I wish that she had bid me many things. And that I wasn't smiling. And that I had understood, as she probably understood at that time, that she wasn't going to see her son and grandson again, and had properly behaved a little more grown-up; to give her a little less worries.
But now, I can change none of that.
I can remember those times long ago, when she used to call me over to help her put a thread through the eye of a needle; when she asked me to read the newspaper aloud; when I do something bad in the courtyard and she would come down chasing me with those tiny but hurried steps. Childhood is always such innocent times. Like a shining, happy sun on a winter morning that I remember so well.
And those glistening tears... I will always remember those glistening tears.
wow (Score:2)
--zach