Another quiet shedding of tears—sudden and unannounced. I found myself thinking of my grandfather again. It has already been seven years.
It was the day after New Year’s Day. My parents had taken me and my childhood friend to an amusement park. But just as we arrived, their growing arguments from the trip reached a breaking point, and they left abruptly, tossing us a few half-hearted words: “Have fun.”
I barely remember what we did that day. Seven years have passed in the blink of an eye. Faded memories long overwritten by newer ones, cycling in and out. The only thing that remains crystal clear is what my mother said when she came to pick us up:
“Grandpa passed away.”
I still don’t fully understand what that sentence means to me. It seemed so calm, so plain. And yet I’ve found myself returning to that night, again and again over the years, as if that quiet announcement lodged itself somewhere deep in me.
I was too young to fully grasp death. I simply stood still, watching my relatives sob over the casket. I studied my grandfather’s face—he looked as though he had left without pain. I remember the mourners chanting for days and nights, the costumed figures who played spirits to bless the dead. I watched them. I played my part when I was asked.
In the first few years after he passed, I would sometimes hear my grandmother weeping late at night. I remember those rare occasions when my mother drank too much and, in her sorrowed clarity, murmured, “I don’t have a father anymore.” It was then I understood: it’s the living who hurt first and deepest.
Seasons passed. The family members who wept at the funeral have all moved on with their lives. Time softens presence—and dulls death.
I’m startled to realize that my memories of Grandpa have frozen in that final phase of his illness, when chemotherapy had stripped him of expression and presence. That abstract sense of time—of a body dimmed, a mind blurred—moves me to tears even now.
He died when I was in fifth grade.
And now, I’m about to enter university.
又是一场默泪，我突然想起了我的外公，已经是七年前的事了。
那是元旦过后的第一天，父亲母亲带着我和发小去游乐园，临近园区时父母却因旅途中愈发不休的争执而悻悻离去，只徒留下我和发小以及几句好好玩。
已经不大记得那天我们玩过什么。弹指之间的七年，陈旧的记忆，早就被无数涌上来的新鲜，循环往复的替代。唯一清楚的，不过是那句母亲来接我们时对我说的：“外公去世了”。
始终不明白我对记忆里那看似平淡的一句话有着怎样的感受，有且仅有的是，我总无意识在这七年间，反反复复的想起七年前那个收到口头讣告的夜晚。
我那时太小还不太理解死亡，只是沉默的望向对着棺材痛哭的亲人们；我端详外公的脸，他看起来是不带痛苦地离去。那些唱了几天几夜丧歌的人，那些假扮鬼神为逝去亲人保平安的人，我望着，也参与了需要我参与的。偶尔忆起外公刚去世那几年，我在夜深人静中察觉到有关外婆的啜泣，想起母亲少有几次喝的不省人事时，悲伤却又清醒的说着“我没有爸爸了”，才后知后觉经验还活着的总是最先感到痛苦。
春去秋来，那些在丧事上痛哭的亲人们这些年也迈向了新的生活，时间不单抚平了存在，也淡化了死亡。我也惊觉我对外公的印象，永远停留在他因癌症化疗，而产生刻板动作的状态里了。那种抽象时间下，人被剥夺感官而产生的茫然感让我不自觉流下眼泪，原来外公是在我小学五年级时去世的，可我已要上大学了。