Dedicated to my dear grandfather

Recently, a notion was put onto my mind and made my think: ”Is there really one person that truly left such a significant impact on my life? The way I contemplated and lived". Everyone only live once and during this life, they certainly have encountered an immense world filled with different minds and intellects but as I pondered about this question, I hardly could think of person that truly could provide me with such an amount of inspiration, wisdom and guidance. However, there was still one exception…

I’ve always admired and looked upon my grandfather, ever since those years I barely could comprehend and remember. My grandmother would always tell me that they both were successful scientists and this ”Agong guy” also made me the impression of being a rather interesting and obscure, partially due to that fact that I rarely spend my moments with him. His career and accomplishments as a scholar were at all times impressing to behold and I really appreciated his ”sage” look and wisdom from a very young age as well, hence attaining my sincere respect to him.

My grandfather is a rather enthusiastic tutor and a fatherly figure, striving to witness his grandchildren succeed and mature to the best of his abilities and his unforeseeable compassion and concern to our family is very touching characteristic to behold, although those qualities are not always expressed in a visible manner. ”Agong” is also a very compassionate man, someone that answered a call when needed. His nature of loving unconditionally is the driving force behind the people he loves and cares of. The wisdom and tutelage I’ve acquired from my grandfather have made me into how I ambiguously analyze and interpret the world that lies next to me and I’m also repeatedly apprised by him of how using the mind and challenging it is a major factor accomplishing various tasks and resolving difficulties you stumble across. This is why academic studies, especially mathematics will get you further in life and he correspondingly would remind me devoting myself into things and tasks that benefits myself in the future even though these ”beneficial things” might be considered monotonous in my frame of reference.

The sincerity I have towards my grandfather have remained during the years but it isn’t in the same condition as before, gradually maturing during the course of the years. First of all, our relationship to each other have transcended from a strict paternal one to that of a more equal, unbiased one. A couple of tears ago, my grandfather seemed fairly anxious of me due to the fact that I did not realize the importance of education back then and could clearly remember him and my mother tutoring me in many subjects (especially mathematics) with a quite strict and disciplinal approach, due to the fact that my peers in China substantially exceeded me in terms of academic abilities. Nevertheless, as I started to excel in school and appreciate the values of education just as it occurred to my grandfather years ago, the other side of ”Agong”, the naive and curious half became more visible, hidden to me during all of those years and we started forming interesting conversations with each other spanning a vast variety of topics. Sometimes, I even managed to learn him something new and seems to openly accept the of thinking of other people, primarily younger ones instead of rejecting and neglecting it as in the case of most elderlies, a trait I really appreciate of him during our discussions and somehow made each of them memorable.

The mind of a Human being is impressive, isn’t it? As a person grows, their physical and psychological appearance also matures and so have my emotions and respect towards my grandfather. When I was little, my respect towards my grandfather was only superficial, I admired him due to his outward appearance but as our relationship and affinity started developing as the years progressed, my feelings towards him are now much more diversified and mutual instead of being pure and unspecified. In spite of the fact that so many changes can occur to a person during the years, some aspects never really changes and stays as it were before. Even now, ”Agong” still makes the impression of being mysterious and obscure to me just like it did to me years ago and It’s miserable to witness the other side of him, his still intact youthful mentality and curiosity being locked inside a weakening senescent body although he attempts to retain it to the best of his ability. Nowadays, it even is a burden for my grandfather to walk and talk and It’s a sorrowful truth to bear in mind, that a person’s physical age does not always correspond to its psychological counterpart. I thoroughly wish that my grandfather physically could become couple of years younger, whether if that’s not possible.

There is a Chinese idiom called 風燭殘年 (fēng zhú cán nián), deciphered as ”on one’s last legs” or ”ailing like a candle guttering in the wind” in English. This idiom signifies that someone is being near the end of their life, which is just the case of my grandfather and It brings me both tears and smiles, that I actually have met this mind, this inspirational intellect out of everyone I’ve encountered in this life…