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[Letters] A granddaughter’s memories

I have a 92-year-old grandmother. For 20 years of my life, she has lived with me and has become one of the most influential people in my life. When I was a baby, she took care of me instead of my mother, who always came home late from work at night. When I was an elementary school student, she used to come to my school with my favorite candy in her hands, and took me home after class. When I was in middle school, she stood by me when I had some troubles with my friends and my parents. Through her, I gradually got to know the meaning of growing old.

A key moment came four years ago, when I came home from school one day and found out that my grandmother was not at home. I kind of worried about her; she usually came home from the senior citizens’ center around 6 p.m., but she wasn’t home by 8 p.m. that day. My mom and I were very worried about her; she had nowhere else to go except for the senior citizen’s center in front of my apartment. All of a sudden, the telephone rang and a woman on the phone told us that she had found my grandmother on a street which was far from my house.

How frightened she must have been in the dark, having no idea of how to get home! Seeing her, I realized that she was aging so rapidly that she could not even remember the way to home. Since then, she gradually became too weak to go outside, forgot my name and every other family members’ names, lost her hearing and rarely spoke a word. I was heartbroken to see my favorite person became too old to recognize me, whom she had said she loved the most.

Although she cannot remember anything about the time we spent together, those times easily come to my mind when I stare at her eyes. I remember times we spent together, trivial but meaningful things like going home together after class, eating dinner, just two of us, and watching my favorite TV show together secretly late at night. So I know that although my grandmother keeps growing old and that someday she will leave me, her memories and her life will live on in my heart.

Lee Ga-yeng,

student at Ewha Womans University