i already forget how i used to feel about you

+ how could i carry on, the day you went away +

In an unexpected change of events, my grandfather left us, just like that. No one expected it at all. He wasn't ill, he wasn't particularly old. Sure, he had high blood pressure and cholestrol just like everyone else in the family, but we didn't expect him to go just like that. A silly quarrel with a neighbour that led to a heart attack. Collapsing in the void deck without family beside him. Dying alone without family with him. We never even got to say our last words. I can't remember the last words I said to him. They were probably just "Bye Gonggong." I never expected that goodbye to really be bye for good.

My grandfather was the sweetest old man alive. He was just about my height, really round and jolly. He had a childlike aura about him, finding pleasure in the simplest of things, such as buying breakfast for us. He would watch silly vampire shows on ch8, and laugh at cartoons. He couldn't pronounce our names, and called my sister Priscilla the President. Or my cousin Grace, Grape.

He would smoke 2 big packs of Camel a day. Not really smoking it, but just leaving it to burn at the corner of his mouth. He would play chess with himself because he can't find a player better than him. He made the best mee sua in the world. He paid my brother and me a dollar each when we were little to step on his back. He would send us to school whenever we stayed over, reaching school at 6am because he wanted to start driving his taxi early. He would take aimless trips on the buses around Singapore because bus fares for senior citizens were so cheap. He would buy 50 (yes 50) mini tubes of toothpaste because they were cute and cheap. And then ask the cashier for 50 plastic bags. :)

He never ever scolded us. He always laughed, and his eyes always crinkled up in that familiar curves. Yet as he lay there, his body felt so cold and that delightful smile absent from the grey contours of his face. He's never going to wake up, he's never going to smile that smile i have grown to love so much again.

I don't know how my grandmother deals with it. His death was so sudden. Nobody ever thought that he was going to go. Even when the ambulance came we thought he had just fainted. We didn't even rush to the hospital. My grandmother stayed home, thinking it was nothing really serious. Imagine her regret. If only she had stopped him from going down. If only she didn't dismiss his anger as immature. If only she had known it was the last time she would ever ever ever hear his voice or see his rotund silhouette disappear down the corridor as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other. He was my grandmother's first love, they were neighbours and grew up together. They never dated, but he just asked my great-grandmother for permission to marry her daughter. My grandmother is tall and svelte, it always looks queer to see them together. But they were happy and truly in love.

Imagine losing the person you were supposed to spend your life with. Who would be there to share your life with after that? Imagine being lonely till you die. Imagine life having found the one you love and having to live without him. Having spent 50years together and having to say goodbye. Never ever being able to see him again. She never got the chance to say goodbye. She never knew that it would be the last time she would see him.

Yet she only cried when she first reached the hospital; when she saw the body for the first time; when they closed the coffin. She told him lovingly to rest in peace, that he was enjoying life at last. She touched his grey hair and felt his cold cheek. She smiled. Yet when she walked out of the tent, her 3 sons had to hold her down as she just collapsed into tears.

what would i do if i could reverse time? would i have talked to him more? made him feel more loved? told him about God? played chess with him more? took time to realise that he is growing old and that time was running out? sooner or later he would have to go. i just didnt realise it would be so soon. There was no warning, nothing. And now all I have of him are memories and regrets that I will keep forever in my heart.

+ of all the words in the English language, the saddest of all are 'if only i had' +