“Look! Darling! Look at what I have got for you, they are all your favourite dishes.” Grandpa spoke as he lay down a few home-made dishes on the small, plain dining table. Eric pulled his chair forward, nearer to the dining table, picked up a piece of roasted pork with his chopsticks and began to tuck into his bowl of rice silently. “Here, Darling, have some vegetable,” Grandpa spoke with concern as he picked up some cabbage and placed into Eric’s bowl,” it’s good for your health.” Eric rejected the offer and toss the cabbage back into the plate. “Why? You don’t like it? Try some green beans then.” Grandpa did it again, still could not read Eric’s emotions. “Enough! Eric stood up and smacked the chopsticks onto the table, “that’s enough! I am full.” Eric’s tone was a mixture of annoyance and anger, he walked into his room and smacked close the door behind him. The old man was a little shocked. He did not know what had happened to his dearest grandson and began to wonder if it was his mistakes for not building taking care of the seventeen-year-old boy since his mother had passed away. The next day, Eric woke up in a hurry. Grandpa was still dozing off on his wooden rocking chair. Eric, still having a messy hair, trying to button up his uniform hotfoot, dragging his bag and stuffing a few books into it. He screamed and shouted at the sleeping old man when he could not find his shoes. Grandpa took his own sweet time to get up, walked briskly to the balcony to retrieve the part of well-washed school shoes which he had washed the night before. Eric snatched the shoes swiftly then darted out of the house not realizing that he had left his textbook on the tea table. Grandpa picked up the text book, knowing that it was important to Eric, the sixty-year-old man began a mad chase behind the teenager. “Darling! Darling!” The panting old man caught up to his grandson at last, before he lost in sight into the school gate, “darling! Your text… text book.” Upon hearing his grandpa’s voice, Eric was fumed, he walked towards his grandpa and grabbed the book from him. Before he left, he warned the ashen-faced old man not to address him like that anymore, anywhere. Then, he gave a look of disgust and disappeared behind the school gate with his friends, whom jeered at his pet name, making Eric utterly embarrassed. Grandpa was extremely disappointed , almost at a lost of words. He told himself that he should treat Eric nicer, he was turning eighteen that day. Before returning home, Grandpa went to collect a cake and a jigsaw puzzle which he had ordered previously from a shopping mall. The cake had ‘Happy Birthday Darling!’ written on it in Chinese and the jigsaw puzzle was extremely significant, it was a picture of him and his grandson. When he returned home, he displayed the cake on the dinning table and smiled to himself foolishly as he stared at the jigsaw puzzle pieces. He wondered what would Eric say and how he would feel. Hours later, Eric returned home furiously after suffering a day of jeering and mocking at his pet name. Grandpa, as usual, did not read Eric’s emotions. He went up to him with a big smile and the jigsaw puzzle held by two hands. Had enough nonsense from the old man, Eric smacked the puzzle off the old man’s hand, the puzzle broke into pieces. Grandpa’s heart like those puzzle piece s shattered and ruined. The he collapsed before Eric’s eyes, Spurts of blood gushed out from his mouth. He had been hiding his stomach cancer for years to save up money for his grandson’s education. Eric realized the situation, wept as he kneed before his grandpa, apologizing profusely to him. But it was all too late. Grandpa passed away before the ambulance had arrive. He only realized how much his Grandpa loved him when he fixed the jigsaw puzzle and saw the message on it, “I love you, Darling! I will be a better grandpa.”
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