My Grandfather

Regretful Yet Thankful
My grandfather had passed away two years ago, diagnosed with liver cancer. It was a hard time for the whole family. His last six months was a painful memory that is unforgettable to us. Everything started when the doctor told our family that he was diagnosed with last stage of cancer a few months after our reconciliation with our long lost grandfather. When I was only three years old, both my grandparents from my father side decided to get a divorce. He had been seeing someone else when he is still holding his marital status with her. As a woman, she felt cheated by him. Thus she thought that the divorce was the best conclusion to end everything. However, that was not it. She wanted the big family to have no relationship with him. It was a time of shame for the big family because he did not just cheated my grandmother’s feeling but he also went against our race tradition in Indonesia.
In Indonesia there are two different races, the Chinese and the real native Indonesian. The tradition that goes from generation to generation clearly stated that Chinese should not be engaged in a relationship more than a friend with another race. It sounded racist but that’s how it goes in the Muslim dominated country. My grandfather wrongdoing has put all of the grandchildren’s future on stake. It will leave a scarce on our family background when all of us were going to get married later on. The alienation was a harsh thing but there was no other better choice.
Since we almost never met my grandfather after the incident, we did not know much about him. When we were just going to know more about him, the bad news came across. The only things that I knew about my grandfather were all the negative things. I wish that there would be more time for us, the grandchildren, to at least know more about his good side. In all our eyes, my grandfather was a cheater and someone that has no dignity. It was what we always hear a lot of times from my grandmother. Even...