| Wow, I feel very bad for you. I trully hope you feel better. Hopefully the basil community can cheer you up :] Even so, I know that it's very hard to get over, both emotionally and mentally. Here's my story: Every summer, I always go to China to stay with my dad and my step mom, because my parents are divorced. I'm okay with the divorce, because they had it when I was very young, so I can't remember why they did. Anyways, every summer, my dad always makes me visit my grandparents in the countryside. As a present day kid, I really didn't want to. It's not that I didn't like my grandparents, but it was that there was never anyything to do. I always really loved my grandparents, because they raised me when I was very young, and taught me right from wrong. Anyhow, last summer, they forced me to go again. So, I went for a couple days, complained about it, then came back to Bejing. When summer was over, I headed back to California for school. Halfway through the school year, I got a couple e-mails from my dad, my step-mom, and my sister. My sister took school in Shanghi (after I went back, they moved to shanghi, because my dad got a job with Harvard, and my sister had to go to a good international school), because of reasons that I really don't want to talk about. They told me that my grandfather had a tumer, and that his days were numbered. So, my mom applied me for a visa (I have US citizenship), so that if I needed to, I could go back to see him. But before my mom could book me a flight to Shanghi, I got an e-mail from my dad, which made that day the worst day of my life. My grandfather had passed away. Instantly, I felt a huge burden of guilt and dread fall upon me. Questions ran through my mind, as I started tearing up. Why hadn't I been there? Why was I so selfish? Why couldn't I have spent more time with him? I felt so bad, because I felt like the whole thing was my fault, although of course it wasn't. This was undoubtedly the worst day of my life, the reason being that I had never had a family member pass away, and my grandparents were very dear to me. They raised me from when I was born, to when I was a toddler, cooking for me, caring for me, and telling me stories. I felt horrible, knowing that I wasn't at his bedside, in his time of need, when he was always there for me. As the days went by, my dad, my sister, and my step-mom uncovered many of his belongings that we had never known about, one thing being his journal. Inside it, he wrote about how he missed me every single day, and how he would always count down the days until I came back. He was a very brave and strong person, and was even held at gunpoint by a man, back in the day when he was in the army. This was very hard for me to swallow, because I was only 13 at the time (now 14). It's so hard knowing these things, but if you don't know them, there's always something missing. Anyways, thank you for reading this. I sincerely hope that you feel better. |
