It was just the autumn of 2007, I was at home to the moment when my grandpa Jie visited us. He looked so great and talked cheerfully and humorously at the table. I always liked this grandpa Jie because he was kind-hearted and accommodating. What’s more, I played with him a lot before I went school. My family was poor then and I never had money to eat snack, but grandpa Jie always bought snack to share with me. Though his left eye became blind for the sake of illness, he was always cheerful.

       I was less than five years then and always haughty. One summer evening when we were watching TV outside, I began to shut my left eye to imitate grandpa Jie, all people around burst into laughter. That was exactly what I wanted, I wasn’t as low-key as now and always liked to have flubdub to show myself then. Just then, grandpa Jie suddenly stood behind me and pretended to be very angry, “what’re you doing? Do you want a bump? I’ll knuckle your head!” I was scared and just found a man with eye-patch on TV, then I pointed TV, “grandpa Jia, I’m just imitating him, not you.” All the people burst into laughter again.

      Something unexpected may happen at any time. Who knew a month later, Grandpa Jie was diagnosed with lung cancer and it was also at the advanced stage. It was really a satire. He never smoked and all heavy smokers around him were fine.

      After a month, it was already mid-autumn festival then. On the evening of mid-autumn festival, my mother suddenly came from grandpa Jie’s home and told me to see grandpa for the last time. I felt grandpa Jie would leave us soon, then I rushed to his home.

      When I came to the room and found grandpa Jie was really feeble and thin. His face was really sallow and eyes deep in eye sockets. He saw me coming and just told granny Jie to give me candy to eat with a feeble voice. He had kept the habit of giving things to me to eat all the years. I was really choked that I couldn’t even say anything.

      Suddenly he set his teeth tightly and rolled his eyes to stare me fixedly. He seemed to be in extreme pain and I felt chilled in my heart. I didn’t know what kind of feeling it was. For a little while, his hands relaxed and stopped breathing. I just stood there in a daze until I was told by my uncle to burn joss paper.

      I kneeled on the concrete floor and burned joss paper in a big cauldron. Seeing the orange flames, I was mixed with all kinds of feelings. I couldn’t get them out of my mind. After I burned all joss papers out, it was time for mourning drum, which was a custom of my hometown. A fat man sang under the dim light while playing drum. I sat silently in the shadow of trees and listened to him. I was also looking at people’s paly faces under the irradiation of searchlight uneasy and said to myself, “how could life be so fragile? I always thought death was a really remote thing.” The fat man knew the history of China well and sang historical giants’ great achievement from Three Kingdom Period to Republic of China, but then he changed the subject and sang all of them were just vanished like smoke and most. Life seemed to be in vain. The evening wind of autumn was a little chill, the light of searchlight was so ghastly, the song of the blind man was dismal.

When I went to bed that night, I couldn’t sleep. I never saw a man passing away, not even to say it was grandpa Jie. Grandpa rolled his eyes to stare at me and was so painful. I was awake nearly all night.

It was drama the next night. I never saw live Chinese drama before. Actors and actresses wore zooty costume and sang elegantly. All audience kept watching it high-spiritedly and eating all kinds of snack. When the drama was in climax, there would be loud shouting, “Bravo! Bravo!” I suddenly thought it was more like a wedding than a funeral. They were just happy and finally could see a live drama with pretty actors and actresses. Of course they should be happy because they didn’t need to lie in the coffin. Then I thought of it again, what’s the use of being sad? No use at all. I also thought being happy was wrong but didn’t know where was wrong.

 I suddenly began to think of the meaning of my life. Even the Sun will have its day of death, let alone common people. Just use the limited life to do things according to your heart’s desire and try your best to live every second well, then there’ll be no regret to die. Don’t need to be too pessimistic. To one, posthumous world is just as the same as the world before one’s birth. Should behave like Old Imp Zhou Botong. When Hong Qigong, Guo Jing and him were about to be ate by sharks on the sea, Old Imp even had the interest to bet who would be the first one to be ate by shark and treated it as a normal game regardless of death. Just try your best to live, which is the best thing, also the only thing you can do.

Wish my grandpa Jie rest in peace and bless me!