I can’t vividly remember the last thing I said to my grandpa over the phone. It’s not because it was a long time ago, but because it was such an ordinary scene: walking past my mom while she was on a call with family and having the phone shoved in my face until I greeted everyone.
I grew too comfortable with that, and I knew all my lines by heart like a non-geriatric politician. Starting with surface level niceties, something about how school is hard and “I’ll catch you all up when we go overseas.”
Sometimes, you don’t know that you’re making false promises.
I woke up one morning with my mom in tears and was told that grandpa passed away. It happened so fast that he was alive for the first bite of dinner and gone by the second.
So, like most people who have to grieve too suddenly, I went on with my day as usual. It took a week before I realized that I would never see him again – even if I went overseas.
In that time, I began running through the memories we had. I recalled that the only reason my siblings and I wanted to go to that city was because of the lively atmosphere he created and the packs of gum he was overly generous with. The last time I saw him, I was young enough to eat a whole pack until my jaw couldn’t close anymore.
Then, more things made sense. Every time I stood in front of my mom’s phone for a FaceTime, they’d be shocked at how much I’d grown. When it was just a call, I’d still get questions you’d ask an eight-year-old. Deep down, I wanted to see them in person to dispel the outdated version of me they knew and finally have real conversations with them.
I wanted to know my grandpa for who he was beyond the face he put up in front of little kids.
My best bet was to look around at how the adults were reacting. Immediately, it became clear that the thing he was known for was giving. While it was endless packs of gum for me, it was his extended family’s college tuition and local orphans’ meals. With him gone, I felt the pain of those who wouldn’t be on the receiving end of his immense generosity.
By now, I feel as if I see what I would have if circumstances made meeting him in person again possible; he never wanted me to become a scientist who discovered a cure or a doctor for prestige, but to make a real difference within my community.
Even though I worry I’m too hesitant to give as unflinchingly as he did, the heart of his actions inspires me to make everything I do at college now mean something.
While I don’t know if I’ll be the kind of person he was in the long run, I hope I can keep my promise to one day visit him in the life hereafter.
