To commemorate my grandpa

Another Departure

One thing comes to my mind each time when I think of my late grandfather: a black umbrella.
His umbrella was much bigger than the ordinary one, I remember once he told me that this umbrella was a reward for his outstanding sales achievements when he was a shop assistant in 1960’s. My grandfather was a reserved man without too many words however he was affable almost to everyone. Perhaps for this reason, people are more willing to buy things from his counter. Every time, when he talked about this, I noticed the looks on his face were full of pride and happiness. Even it was the only thing as well as the last thing that could be taken into “showing off” in his whole life. To him, this old-fashioned and beat-up umbrella stands for the memorable youthful days, while to me; it was just a big play thing particularly when I was a child.
It is very common for young kids to be curious about everything around them; I was not an exception too, but the very thing that deeply attracted me was not anything else but my grandfather’s umbrella. Almost everyday, started from the time I woke up, I rode on my grandfather’s neck with his umbrella open above our heads. In this specific time, I had the feeling of being kinglike, once my grandfather felt tired and stopped to have a rest, I would be displeased and even cried out. So everyday, we three became the special scene in my small village, one old man, one child and a big umbrella.
Time flies like an arrow; I was gradually grown up and enrolled by a university in other city of our province. The first time I had to leave my grandfather during the last twenty yeas. On the day when I was about to make my departure, he told me “it is not so far, you can come home every month, just take care yourself.”
In the following years, every time when I was back to visit him, he would always retrace many unforgettable memory slips happened among the umbrella and us. Each time I heard this, each time I got touched.
However, in this world, nothing seems to be more inevitable than aging and death. One morning in last May, I got a call from my mother, so surprisingly; she told me that my grandfather was passed away. The very moment I heard her words I was totally at a loss, my mind was in a complete turmoil. I couldn’t figure out why it happened so quickly that I even got no chance to see him for the last time.
This time, it was another departure with a distance between life and death, which is so long for me to afford.