You were lying on the bed looking at me timidly, like a child who has made a mistake and is waiting for a parent to scold you. I greeted your frightened, age-appropriate eyes as softly as I could, while I went to the bed and lifted the covers and pulled down your pants, and sure enough, you had wet the bed again.
This is you with two strokes and Alzheimer’s!
My mother was always busy, so I took on the job of taking care of you, before and after work.
At the age of 20, I learned to change diapers, to bathe people, to entertain children (you with the IQ of a child), and to carry a basket with diapers covered in poop and urine to the river ditch to wash them, like a little daughter-in-law.
You clung to me like a child.
I always bathed you, hoping your body would be as clean as mine. When I adjusted the bath water and went to hold you, which is 80 to 90 pounds, I always copied both hands behind you, took a deep breath, and then put you up with both arms and put you into the basin steadily and gently. I use a towel to softly scrub the sagging skin full of age spots under a prominent rib. You would always smile, with a girlish shyness, and let me rub it.
You eat, always in the hall. When the meal was ready and the spoon was placed, I would wait on the sidelines. I had to wipe the grains of rice and spilled Soup from your chin every now and then, and I had to watch out for your spoon hand knocking over the bowl, just like a child who had just started to eat. But I will not pick up the rice grains on the table and bring them to your mouth, as you did back then.
The day is cold, and your thin hands are cold, like the ice cubes. Why don’t you cry, as I did as a child when I came Home from school, freezing and crying, and pounced on you? I will take your hand and put it into my warm arms, as you put my cold little hand into your warm arms.
Because of my momentary negligence, you fell and broke your towering brow bone, oozing out a trace of blood. Looking at the blood, I felt dizzy, sad and scared – are you going to die? I was at my wits’ end, but I kept apologizing to you: “Grandma, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Tears rolled down my face. You opened your mouth to smile and even comforted me: “Don’t cry, don’t cry, it doesn’t hurt, really, it doesn’t hurt at all.”
Before you died, you had trouble swallowing, you hadn’t eaten a bit of Food for three days, your throat made a loud whirring sound, phlegm in your throat, but you were unable to spit it out. Looking at your face distorted with pain, I felt as if I saw death staring at you intently, putting its clutches over your head.
Later I often thought, 20 years old I was too young, too ignorant! Even if you don’t know about the respirator, you can still use your mouth to suck out the phlegm clogged in your throat. But I didn’t know that at that Time! Perhaps, you could have lived longer, perhaps, less pain when you were leaving. When I think about this, I often blame myself for my ignorance.
At 20, I knew that I would be a mother to a child, I would be a grandmother to a child, and perhaps I would be a great-grandmother to a child. I will love them as you love me.
I often see people who are disheveled or well-dressed running around for three meals a day and for the happiness of their families, they must also be eager to be loved and loved, right? When I look at them, there is always an emotion swelling in my heart, and that is love.
I know that this is because of you, you let me learn how to love in being loved.
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