My heart cries, quietly, painfully.
My heart cries for you, Grandpa.
My heart cries for you, Greatgrandma.
My heart cries for me.
Death has entered my life once more. She suffered, I know she did. She gave up her will to live when she watched her only daughter die. For two and a half years after my mother's death, my grandmother lived, in the loosest sense of the word, without any desire to. Her heart broke, caving in to her maternal agony.
Her body, knowing what its master wanted, proceeded to defeat her, despite her surrender. Bone cancer quickly spread throughout her body, much like the ovarian cancer that took my mother. The difference here was that my grandmother put up no fight, something that my mother never stopped doing. In the end, though, Death won.
My Grandpa... the pain he feels, I cannot imagine. He was so strong through the trials and tribulations of his only daughter's passing. He was the strength that allowed me to say goodbye to my mother for the last time. Now he faces emptiness where his life partner was for over half a century. He has always smiled, taken the bad and made the best of it. I only hope that his will to live still pushes him on. My heart agonizes over what he must be going through.
My greatgrandmother, at the age of 95, has now seen both her daughter and her granddaughter pass away. She's always been the sharpest wit of the three of them. The maternal agony that I described Grandma to be in must be raging two-fold in my greatgrandmother now. She has fought death off with her cane, her zest for life, and her pure will power. I remember with what joy that she would play Mah-Jong with Grandma, my mother, and I. Where once there were four of us, one from each generation, two are left. The two extremes of our generations, left to contemplate the immense hole that has been twice ripped from our hearts. We still have each other. For this, I am grateful.
Oh, the guilt. Ever since my mother passed away, it had been depressing to talk to my grandmother. So, I called less and less often. I hadn't talked to her in over two months before she passed away. I have my excuses, but once again I find them unacceptable. I was busy with school -- unacceptable. I could always make time in my busy schedule to talk to my friends; I could easily have spent 5 minutes calling China. She was in the hospital, and my grandpa said that he'll pass on my call -- unacceptable. I have called the hospital before, for my mother; I could easily have done it again for my grandmother. I think I was once again in denial of my grandmother's condition. Unacceptable. Once again, I was too late.
So my heart cries on... memories of the pride in having the four generations, my greatgrandmother, my grandmother, my mother, and me, being together, laughing and enjoying life flood my mind. These words... too little, too late. I'm sorry, Grandma. You are greatly missed now, and you will always be greatly loved.
I don't know how much more of this...