The sun rose at the beginning of a new day in my life. God had begun to grant me the treasure of the twenty-four hours. But I found myself grieving somewhat, so I spent this day at home and did not go to school.
Visit to the Grandmother and Grandfather:
For I lived with my grandfather and my grandmother. I went to them to reassure myself about my sick grandfather. He was every day sleeping on the bed, wandering in thought. He would repeat my name: when would I become and when would I sleep? He loved me intensely.
The Illness of the Grandfather:
My father would go every morning to work, and my grandmother would stay by my grandfather until she fulfilled all his requests. While I was about to sleep again, I felt my grandmother calling me to reassure herself about him, for signs of severe fatigue had begun to appear upon him. His face was leaning toward whiteness, and red spots appeared in several areas of his body. He entered the room and my grandmother came out, not knowing what to do.
Memories with the Grandfather and His Counsel:
I went to learn from my father, and the tears were flowing from my eyes. During my sitting by him, as I tried to learn from him, he would not answer me. The thread of memories would come to my mind. I see him now as he writes my length on the wall of the house and draws a sign there, and writes the date and history. Here he turns to what I have written from a composition subject, and says to me: “Your style is beautiful and your handwriting is excellent. It is possible for you to be a great writer.” He requests from me to read some chapters of the books of great writers, but I would refuse. When he saw me wasting my time, he would say to me: “Do not waste time. It is your livelihood. You thus waste your livelihood.” He would also say to me: “Focus on your memory, until you become from the excellent readers at the popular level.”
Patience and Grief:
But where is he now? For in this morning that I find no name for, I saw him looking at me with eyes like tears. Those eyes had been prevented from tears, for this glance was like—and even more impactful than—a stroke hitting red iron. Any glance in which I see the love of people for my heart being wasted, and I cannot do anything to help him. I continued to try to restrain myself that she would not come after, for I used to see my grandmother bringing food emerging from his mouth, so I thought he was beginning to recover. But my joy did not last and faded, for everything had stopped.
The Decree of God:
The sun ceased to send its rays of hope into my heart. The time that contained that moment stopped. The river of tears that flows in my veins stopped. I found myself standing before my grandfather with his body only. During that time, my grandmother was going here and there, as if from her that my grandfather was still tired. I said to her: “It is over, O grandmother. Everything is over.” She cried, and with this weeping, the river of tears exploded from my eyes, as I tried to restrain myself and comfort my weeping grandmother and reassure her that God willed to relieve him from these pains.
The Final Glance:
After an hour or some hours, the place filled with people. I continued to restrain myself until a brown coffin like the tree trunk she had set upon came—which became like a stick fixed in the ground. I went to cast upon it the final glance. We continued walking in the alley—I and my entourage, as if I was walking with him for the final time in this alley—until we went to complete the prayer upon his body. After that, we went to the graves. There I began to lose sensation of those around me—nay, to lose sensation even of the place.
Relief:
Thus I felt no sensation of grief or otherwise. And when they began to lower the coffin, I continued to look at it until the door closed upon the love of people to my heart. This door that would close upon all of us after the expiration of the period of their waiting in the world.