The Last Day

That afternoon, I sat in a cafe across from the City Hall. While doing what I call "people watching" — literally watching strangers on the street — it suddenly dawned on me that this was where my grandfather had once worked, until one day he passed away from a heart attack.

Even though I had never met him, I had heard from my mother that he was a hard-working, intelligent man who had a deep appreciation for art. Like myself, he had also enjoyed going to museums — many times by himself.

My mother used to tell me how, when she was young, he would call home to ask about an exhibition mentioned in the newspaper. My mother, his favorite first daughter, would then pick up the newspaper and read out the details for him.

After his death, everything changed. In my mother’s old diary, there were many sad stories she had written about her father’s sudden death. She was in high school at the time, no older than seventeen or eighteen; death was nothing but a strange, earth-shattering concept to her.

And now, after all these years, that very workplace where my grandfather had worked for was right in front of me. In my mind, I tried to imagine what his last day might have looked like: What did he wear that day? Who was with him when he collapsed? What ran through his mind in his final moments?

They were the questions that didn’t have any answers. So I kept staring at the building, and the gray sky that was about to rain, until finally, it did.