Writer Walk is studying for a PhD, and in 2021, she did an expressive writing healing course for a group of elementary school students. They had a lot of unhappiness, and walking around opened a tree hole for them and asked them to write down their unhappiness.
One of the "hurt" children wrote:
Two years ago, my grandfather died, he was the person who hurt me the most before, and he and I agreed that he would never leave. One day, Grandpa died of a heart attack because of his nose. Looking at the dying grandfather, I seemed to be piercing my heart, thinking every day, grandpa said, but he did not keep the agreement, until the Chongyang Festival, we brought a bunch of delicious food to visit him. When Grandpa died, many people came and had a funeral with him, and I will never forget that happy time. - An unknown child.
After I read it, I wrote a letter back to him/her.
Hello dear little friends!
The walking teacher showed me your letter, and first of all, I saw your title—one thing that hurt me. This title made my heart ache, I suddenly remembered myself, there are some hurt memories hidden in the depths of my mind, every time I think about it, I always feel a little pain. Then I began to read your letter, I was touched by your agreement with grandpa, and by the end of the reading, I saw this sentence - I will never forget the happy time. This sentence makes me feel happy and relieved.
Yes, you said that you were hurt, and I think, perhaps, you were hurt by a covenant, hurt by the brevity of life, hurt by people who could not be accompanied forever, but you remembered the good times, remembered your grandfather's love.
Tell me a story that happened to me. Nine years ago, my father had a disease called "Alzheimer's disease," which made him gradually forget where his home was, the relatives who had accompanied him all his life, the friends he had spent his childhood friends, the colleagues he had spent half his life with, and of course, he forgot me, his most beloved daughter, and finally, he forgot himself, he forgot everything in the world. I stood in front of him and kept calling him "Daddy", and he looked at me like a stranger and never knew who I was anymore. When he was a child, when he encountered something, he would always say: There is a father, not afraid. Dad was my protector, and I never imagined that one day he would leave me. But he still forgot about me, he was using his increasingly blank memories, leaving me little by little, leaving us, leaving this world... On that day, I was very sad, and I wanted to write about this old man who forgot the people who loved him one by one, and he hurt me, hurt my love for him.
I wrote down my father in 140,000 words, and the name of the book was "The Distant One." Then Dad died, eight years after he fell ill, last year. Just like you did grandpa's funeral, we also did Daddy's funeral, and we didn't do it too solemnly, but we were very serious.
After the funeral, I read the book I had written for my father again, and I was surprised to find that when I wrote it, all the resentment and pain in my heart, as well as the hurt I felt, now when I read it, it has become nostalgia, attachment, love and beauty. Yes, Dad "broke the contract," but when I read the one I wrote down again, I found that he was never separated from me, in my blood, or in my memory.
One day, our dads, moms, grandmas, grandpas, or grandpas, grandmas, even brothers and sisters, will be separated from us. But we can remember them, or, write them down, and we let the loved one meet, meet, and love each other in our own pen, and that's the person we love, the "promise" given to us.
Maybe, ten years from now, you read this letter of your own again—the one thing that hurts me the most—and maybe you'll find that Grandpa never left you, and he's in your memory, forever alive, isn't he?
The person who loves you will not "break the contract".
Come, hug, kid!
Your big friend: Xue Shu
(Xue Shu)