The Sentiments of An Old Man

Last week, I have been trying to call my sister and I reached her after trying to connect a hundred times already. The electricity just got back last Sunday, and the network signal is still poor over our area since the signal towers still have ongoing repairs. When I have reached her through a video call, I'm surprised to see her at my Grandfather's house. She went there under my Mum's instructions since my Mum doesn't feel well enough to travel and check on my Gramps about how he has been doing after the typhoon strikes a month ago.

There he lays in a messy house. The clothes are scattered inside the room along with the rice and canned foods that the City has given them as a little aid after the disaster. He said that his arthritis was so bad that he can't get up. Their good neighbors are always passing by to check on them and run errands for them if there's something that he needed. His second wife has already gone back to being childish and forgetful due to old age, so she can't be useful to him at all.

However, her grandchildren are checking on her every day there and always giving her food. Unlike my Gramps who doesn't have any relatives in that place, he was rarely noticed, and sometimes they also give him food or bread. No one cooks for him there though he has a lot of food packs given by the City. He only eats bread every day and when my sister came to visit him, he was already so thin that you could think of him as on the verge of dying.

My Gramps is a good man when he was still younger and strong. He often visited us to check on us every month since he was always worried about how our father treated us and our Mum. I tried to persuade him to go back with my sister to my hometown but he said repeatedly said that my father don't want him there and they are also not on good terms. I just told him not to mind that drunkard. That drunkard is stupid to think he has a right on the property because he is married to our Mum. He was so confident that he could kick us all out since he think that he has also every right on the property.

It was my Gramp's property from the very beginning. My Gramp works hard for it to buy that land and then cultivate it into ricefields and sugarcane plantations. Even the house that we are living in was originally his, my drunkard father just repair some parts of it and claimed it that is his house. Even the fruit-bearing trees that my drunkard father sold to loggers were my Gramps'. He didn't even ask for permission from him. He just sold it to be cut down to logs, then took all the money to the store to buy alcohol, and have a drinking party with his friends until the was gone. He can eat a complete meal every day and is sheltered because of my Gramps' properties that are inherited by my Mum, and yet, he was so stupid not to know how to express any gratitude towards the old man.

My Gramps also told me that when my Mum is pregnant with my second brother, they have a huge fight and he kicked my Mum in the stomach. Thankfully, my Mum didn't have a miscarriage back then. My Gramps saw it and he got furious, he hit my drunkard father's head with a large stone that he passed out. My father's relatives that are living around the area heard about this the other day, then came in a group to throw stones in my Gramps' house which was near our house back then. It was the reason why my Gramps moved to live in the hometown of his second wife because they haunt him every day to avenge my stupid father. They sided with my stupid father though what he did was unforgivable and I hate them for that as they always pamper him.

I was only close to that one brother of my father who never tolerated his behavior that's why they are also not on good terms up to this day. My Gramps said that the reason why he didn't want to stay at our home though he is having a hard time living in a faraway place is always because of our father. He can't stand to see what that drunkard is doing to my Mum and us. As a father also, he pitied his daughter so much that she is enduring that kind of life every day. Since he is old and grumpy right now, he can do nothing but just watch his daughter being bullied every day. Being in his state where he can't stand up for her anymore, makes him feel sad for her that he can't do anything. That is why he said that he better live far away from where he can't witness all of that every day.

As his grandchildren, we can't also bear to see him in that state. I persuaded him with all that I can and I'm relieved that he finally agreed. I arranged a tricycle to fetch him there. I also told him that he should just wait for me to get back home next month because I will stand up for them and will take care of them.

It just hurts me when he replied,

"That is when you make it here while I'm still alive."

It hurts to hear him accepting his fate and just trying to wait for the time of his death on his deathbed. I know he is too old, then anytime he will eventually die and we can't do anything about it. But if ever, I just wanted to take care of him while he is still alive. I want him to leave this world having peace of mind, knowing that there is someone among us who will stand up for Mum.

This seems like a sentiment of a daughter and a granddaughter, too. Whatever. I just wanted to let it all out.

Thanks for reading!

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