"Cold Hands" (Final Coming-of-Age Story)

His name was Bob, or at least that is what I liked to call him. To be honest, I will never know about his name, his family, or the place in which he came from. All I knew for certain, though, was that to an extent, he enjoyed our company, our home. He never wandered far, and he was always within earshot. If we called, he would come.

In an unfailing and diligent manner, he would awaken me every morning at the first glimpse of dawn, singing an energized song, repeatedly. At first, I was far from pleased with the seemingly rude and inconsiderate awakening; however, as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months, I became expectant. To hear his jubilant greeting at every sunrise, to know that he was there, I was assured that the morning had come once again, and there I was, alive, still breathing. Even in the early moments of the day, I would quietly peek past the curtain of my locked window and see him, standing proudly, and gazing back at me. Bob would cock his head to the side, almost seeming to smirk at me, taunting me to come out into the new light. Sometimes, I would join him outside at a distance, gasping as the fresh air whipped through my hair and slapped color into my pale face. I would feel so awake, so alive. Upon each new day, to have those feelings, it felt so sweet, so good.

With winter quickly fading into oblivion, and the warmth of spring just around the corner, Bob began to explore a little further away from our home. Perhaps the favorable change in weather gave him courage, or simply spiked his curiosity about what lay beyond the shadows surrounding our home. I will never know, nor understand his reasons for adventure, for venturing into the grass of my neighbor’s yard, the yard of the wolf.

It was a quiet afternoon, perhaps even the first day of spring, when I sat in my mother’s bedroom, lazily leaning upon the windowsill, gazing at the gentle sway of the trees, watching the wind sweetly caress the leaves. For all of my life, this view was a pleasant view, a view that illustrated serene harmony within nature—always peaceful, always calm. A lopsided smile spread across my face as I caught a glimpse of Bob, pecking away at the ground in my neighbor’s yard. Silly Bob, I thought, are the bugs better there? I giggled at the thought, smiling at the silly rooster who for the past several months, had become a constant aspect in my life, constant like the ticking of a clock. When had this sweet creature moved in and made a home in my heart, I do not know. Knowing when is irrelevant; all that mattered was that he was there.

Smiling, I clicked my tongue, a signal Bob knew and instantly recognized. He cocked his head in that teasing manner; I was about to call his name when…

BAM.

Time instantly slowed as a look of panic surged through Bob’s tiny eyes, and his body slowly collapsed into the ground. When I tried to call him, all that escaped my lips was an irate scream refusing to cease. His body appeared as if it was dancing, an erratic dance causing my body to tremble, giving strength to my screams. In this horrid hurricane of time, I glanced at my neighbor’s house. My eyes met the wolf, his eyes impassive, and a rifle in his hand.

As my brain attempted to process what the wolf had done, the wolf spared not another moment as he aimed his gun once more. My ears were numb to the sound of the shot, the shot that caused Bob’s tiny body to grow still. Rivers began to flow from my eyes, and somewhere in that moment, my mother gathered me in her arms, softly crooning words of comfort into my ear. Once more, I looked up to see the wolf. His eyes darkened, and he closed the window, locking it. With that, he turned away without another glance at the corpse that now lay in his backyard.

I buried my face into my hands, muffling the sounds of my sobs.

My hands were cold…

---

Even weeks later, I would still look outside, perhaps hoping to see Bob somewhere; but even in disillusionment, he was nowhere to be found. He was gone, because I watched him die.

Now, the wolf could no longer look at me, and I could not understand why. His eyes would avert mine; as soon as he saw me walking down the street, he would go inside, closing the door behind. Why? Could it be that someone such as he was able to fathom grief, guilt? To me, the wolf was a murderer; yet, if he was the murderer, then why did he seem so afraid of me? Lost in confusion, I asked my grandfather, Jii-chan, why.

“Jii-chan,” I asked as I sat in his lap, playing with a button on his light blue polo shirt. “Why does my neighbor do that? Why does he seem afraid? You know I’m not scary, right?”

“Oh silly,” Jii-chan said, his large belly jiggling as his deep jolly chuckle filled the vicinity of his garage. “He’s not afraid of you, you little shrimp!”

I stared at him in puzzlement, and his laugh only deepened. Then, however, his face grew softer and his voice quieted, almost to a mere whisper.

“It’s because you made him regret.”

“Hmm, but what’s regret?”

A gasp suddenly escaped my lips as I accidently plucked off the button from his shirt.

Jii-chan’s smile returned once again, his eyes twinkling like the stars. He patted my head affectionately, smoothing down the unruly curls that bounced around my shoulders.

“One day, you’ll understand,” he said, so softly that I almost didn’t hear. Why this boisterous man was whispering, I do not know. Nevertheless, he said one day I’d understand; I chose to believe that, to believe that one day when I am older, I would learn what regret means, perhaps in school, or even on television. Yet, he would be the one to teach me; I wish he had not.

---

“Mommy, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she replied, but panic and anxiousness radiated clearly in her voice. Although I am a child, I know that I am not incompetent; I know that something is wrong.

Patiently, I sit on the living room sofa, waiting for my mother to speak. Her hair is in a bit of a tangled mess, her eyes are puffy, and her skin is pale; she is not the radiant mother that I know. Who is this woman before me, distraught and fragile, this woman who looks like she is a teacup teetering on the edge of a shelf, about to plummet down into oblivion? In this moment, with her knuckles turning white from clenching a used tissue, she is not the mother I know.

Eternity seems to pass when my mother finally finds her voice to speak once more.

“Cancer. He has…cancer.”

The words dig deep into my skin, and the devil takes hold of my broken heart. Although I am young, I know what cancer is; I know what it can do to people, what it does to people, often. Cancer is the wolf, and now, my Jii-chan was the rooster, pecking in the yard, a yard that he did not belong in; he was now in the yard of death, and the wolf was taking aim.

---

The months that followed are a blur; or rather, that is what I tell others so I do not have to explain one of the darkest moments in my life in detail; and, that is what I tell myself, so I can pretend that I have forgotten it. If truth be told, though, I have not forgotten; I do not think I can, or ever will forget; the devil will not allow me that pleasure. The hospital, the blood, the puking, the radiation, the chemotherapy, the nights that I cried myself to sleep…I remember those, all too well. I remember when the doctors said that he would die; I remember when the doctors said that he would live. I remember when the doctors said, “I’m sorry, this is the end.”

Forever, I will remember those things, and so much more that I wish I could forget. Likewise, I will always remember January 31—the last time I held Jii-chan; I hugged him, I kissed him, I whispered, “I love you”, but I don’t know if he heard me. I simply do not know.

On that day, I held his hands for one last time. His hands were cold.

---

            “Are you awake?”

            Slowly, I opened my swollen eyes. I had not slept; it was a long and restless night. It was in this new morning, February 1, that I looked into my father’s cold eyes, and I knew the truth.

            “Jii-chan has passed away. I’m sorry,” he mumbled. Awkwardly, my father stood there, perhaps unsure of what to do. His eyes were impassive, and somewhere in that moment, I felt his arms come around me, for a brief embrace. Then, without another word, he left my bedroom. I sat there alone, alone to absorb the truth in this new morning. Jii-chan…was gone. He took his last breath somewhere in this early morning, somewhere in time.

Slowly, I curled up beneath the warmth of my childhood blanket once more, and for the first time in many weeks, I thought of Bob.

In this morning, I needed to hear Bob crow, but it was silent. Somewhere in my mind, I knew Bob was gone; I had accepted that when I watched him become motionless upon the grassy ground of my neighbor’s yard. Yet, as I closed my eyes, and the tears began to fall, I wished and wished that Bob would crow, that maybe this was all a terrible dream.

However, it was silent. This silence affirmed that death did indeed exist.     

---

“He was…a good man, you know? Ah, I wish I hadn’t fought with him so much,” my grandmother uttered quietly, her eyes glossy from unshed tears.

My mother nodded in agreement. “I wish I hadn’t spent so much of my life thinking he was bad, that he was no better than any other man; but he was better, he was good. I wish I had had a different perspective,” she muttered ponderously. Her gaze went towards the window, looking out at the distance, perhaps rewriting the history she had with her father, my Jii-chan.

I stare at the two women in front of me, entranced. How much time has passed? Was it minutes, hours, days, I do not know. Starring at the wall with eyes unblinking, I become lost within the chaos of my own thoughts too; it is a field of war, with no peace or end in sight. 

I wish I had shared my karaoke set with him when I was four years old instead of throwing the toy at his feet in selfishness, only to have him hug me in my guilt.

I wish I had waited outside every time he called to say he was coming to visit, just as he did for me. He would wait in his garage excitedly, waving vigorously as soon as our car pulled up into his driveway. I wish I had visited him more often.

I wish I had called him more.

I wish I had sung for him his favorite song.

I wish I had told him that I loved him, every moment of every day.

But, I hadn’t.

Instead, I am now here alone. Crying, wishing he were with me now, and always…

Jii-chan was right; one day, I would understand. Now, I do; now, I see what regret is. To have wishes that will never come true, to have words left unspoken, to want time to rewind—that is regret. He left me, he left us; he left us with regret.

I close my eyes, running numb fingers against my throbbing temple. My blood runs cold; I find myself sinking deeper into an eternal hell, losing sight of the light. The jabber and the clamor of the unnamed grievers gathered at the funeral only increases the pounding in my head. Who are these people? I do not know any of them; they are strangers, whispering as I walk past, growing silent if I stare. Perhaps it is true that only in death one can find peace, for death is quiet, serene, undisturbed. That is one consolation, I suppose.

After the service, I quietly break away from the crowd, unnoticed. Being around them, hearing about how well they knew Jii-chan, how much they loved him…it was too suffocating. Their confabulated stories, the lies, their fake tears, their forced smiles; it made me sick.

Now, finally, I am physically alone, yet, he is still haunting me; he is alive in every waking moment, every sleepless night, in my mind. From him, I cannot escape, and, I know that I have gone insane. Perhaps, I am disturbed, for my twisted thoughts do not wish to escape from him. Why? Why do I want this torture, this pain? It is because I do not want to forget, because if I forget him, he will become only a memory, and I don’t think I’m ready for that yet; I am not ready to let him go, as I did Bob. I am not ready to say goodbye.

---

It has been four years now, since… you know…since he left. Although I am in my first year of high school, consumed by the academic workload and the drama of crazed teenagers striving for popularity power, I still feel lonely in a crowded room; I still miss him, sometimes more than I think I should. To be honest, I am no longer afraid to say goodbye, to let go, to let him become a memory; but I cannot seem to do it, no matter how hard I try. It seems that somewhere along the line, I became lost, too. Who I am, where I am, I do not know. Perhaps a part of me died inside with him, and once something dies, it is gone. Although I may never openly admit it, a part of me will never return; the part of me that is now gone has left me with broken, mismatched pieces that I must now call myself. It is a beautiful disaster; a disaster I may spend the rest of my life searching for an answer, trying to understand.

My classes help, though, in offering me the chance to explore the mess I have made of my life in the four years since he’s been gone. In class today, we were asked to write about a vivid memory, about something that if we were to close our eyes, we would be able to feel it crawl upon our skin as if we were in the moment. This is what I wrote; Jii-chan, can you hear?  

Whenever I smell incense

It is time to say goodbye.

And time is standing still,

And I am in the middle of the room

Gazing at the smoke rising towards the sky,

Ever so high…

The golden temple glimmers

In the quiet fading light.

Sparkles and twinkles shine ever so bright,

Chimes swaying, singing a quiet song,

My bones shiver from the thunder of the gong.

But that is not my story you see.

My story is of the incense suffocating me,

For grandfather was to no longer be

Alive…

For he had died,

And this was our time to say our final

Goodbye.

The problem is, however, I never could let go. In my heart, I failed to say goodbye.

---

Dear Jii-chan,

On Saturday, I will be complete with my second year of college.

Jii-chan, are you proud? Are you smiling down on me somewhere, chuckling at the silly mistakes that I’ve been making along the way? Please say yes. I need to believe in that.

Oh Jii-chan, I didn’t know that I’m such a baby; I cannot stop the tears from streaming down my face as I write this, as I think about you. The world tells me that by now, I should be over it; I should be over losing you. To be honest, though, I don’t think I ever will be. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry that I can’t stop missing you; I’m sorry that I can’t forget you.

I’m sorry I haven’t visited your grave in a while because, the truth is, I feel so empty when I’m there; I just fall deeper into the dark, because it reminds me that you’re not here.

I’m sorry that I’m sitting here crying, wishing for many things I know I can never have, so many wishes that I know will never come true, because all of these wishes are about you.

You were right; I did come to understand what regret is, and so much more. I just had hoped I would have learned about it in a different way, not like this.

Oh Jii-chan, I have a confession to make.

I don’t think I can say goodbye. I have tried, for so many years to let it go, to become numb to the pain of losing you, but I can’t do it. No matter what I say, no matter what I do, it does not fix what I feel, what I have already lost while grieving for you. Today, I face the truth; I know that I feel guilty because there was nothing that I could do for you. Just like with Bob, I watched you die. Do you know how difficult that is to live with, every day of my life? Life and death…I will never understand these things. Which is better? If only you could tell me.

You are in my thoughts, my prayers, and my nightmares too. I say that you’re not on my mind, but it’s not true. I lied to mommy when she asked if I was fine; I stayed silent when my friends said that old people are meant to die. I am not brave enough to let people see how much I still miss you. Will you forgive me, please?

Maybe one day, though, and maybe it will even be today, I will find the courage to admit that even after all of this time, I still hold you in my heart. Maybe one day, I will be brave enough to tell people that this is not a sign of weakness, but rather a sign of strength, a strength that allows someone to wake up each morning, and start a new day.

Oh Jii-chan…will you please hold my hand?

My hands are cold.