Shengliver’s Note: Reading the teens’ journals is like taking a ride down their life journey. In this entry, you will read about the changes which befell the family out of the blue. The grandad is now gone.

Part 1

During the New Year holiday (January 1—3, 2021) I went back and visited Grandad at the home village in Yunxian. It was about three months since my last visit. The last visit to him had been during the Chinese National Day celebrations at the beginning of October, 2020. Already in his seventies, Grandad lives alone.

My arrival in his home could not have pleased Grandad more. He cooked a lot of my favourite dishes. The sight, aroma and taste of the dishes rekindled my memories of those years when he had looked after me. In the blink of an eye, I have grown up. In the blink of an eye, Grandad is grey-haired.

One image sticks in my mind’s eye. I was riding a tricycle merrily while Grandad was running after me. I was a kindergartener then. Grandad took care of me in those years. It was such a halcyon time.

When it was time to start primary school, I had no choice but to come to the city and leave Grandad behind in the home village.

Despite his advanced age, Grandad still looks a picture of health. I hope that in the years to come, he will be seeing me go to college, get married and start family.

Part 2

I visited Grandad during the New Year holiday, which I wrote about in the journal earlier this term.

Ten days after the New Year visit to Grandad, something happened. That day when I came back home from school after evening classes, there was no one in. I called my parents on the phone right away. Father answered. He said in a shaky voice that my mother and he, together with my uncles and aunts, were getting Grandad taken to hospital for surgery. I detected a sense of urgency in Father’s tone.

The news caught me completely off guard. It was simply a bolt from the blue. Grandad had been suffering from hypertension for years. He took medication for the condition on a daily basis. Earlier that day he had had a bad fall at home, which rendered him unconscious. Thanks to my cousin calling the ambulance in time, Grandad was rushed from the village to the hospital, where a CT scan showed Grandad was suffering a cerebral haemorrhage. Surgery was performed without delay on him.

Two weeks after Grandad’s operation, luckily, I got a three-day break thanks to the mock exam the graduating classes had to sit. I took the time to go and see Grandad. He had been unconscious in the ICU since the brain surgery. The nurse shot a vid of Grandad on her phone and showed it to me. My eyes welled up the instant I saw in the vid a hoary man confined to bed with tubes and bandages all over the body, practically on the verge of death. It dawned on me that I had almost lost my dear grandad.

When winter vacation came, I went over to accompany Grandad in his ward.

Grandad is now back at home. When I have time, I try to go and visit him although he has not come to. My father and my aunts take turns caring for him. Every day they feed Grandad on liquid diets and wash and wipe him clean.

It has been roughly six months since the harrowing accident in the home village. Grandad is responding better to treatment. May my daily prayer be answered that Grandad regains his consciousness and talks and smiles again.