I look back now.
It's been so many years since then.
I laugh.
Look out the window.
The sun still shines the same as it did back then I was young. Much younger then now. Oh, how the time passes.
I hold my face into it's rays.
Watch the sky.
There were so many people during my life who watched the sky with me.
You, my sister, my mom, my dad, my friends, my children, my grandchildren, my neighbors and even more.
Blood relations never matter then watching the sky. The sky doesn't care who watches it change endlessly why always staying the same.
We were just humans.
Humans who once dreamed of being young forever.
Children who once dreamed of growing up fast.
And isn't it funny how our wishes contradicted themselves all the time? How a child is wise but the sage is said to be old? How we want to hurry in one moment and stop in the next?
The first time we ran on our legs.
The laughter of decades rings in my ears even now.
There were so many hard times.
There were so many times I just wanted to be dead.
So many times I broke down.
Always hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.
Preparing for the pain.
For the other shoe to drop.
But now it isn't like this anymore.
I look back.
I smile.
My eyes have gained laugh lines in these years.
There is so much more I always wanted to do.
I know it now.
Getting old demanded its price.
But it's worth it.
Living is worth it.
Surviving is.
Some old melody plays in the radio.
I laugh.
I call it old now, but it was my childhood song, my favorite then I was a teenager.
It reminds me of missed chances.
To little traveling.
Dreams hanging in the blue unfulfilled.
All my regrets.
My hands tremble.
But even so.
As I sit in the sun I can't help myself but think back.
It's been decades since I first met you.
Since I first broke.
Since I survived.
Since I fought just to gain a bit of sanity.
So many decades.
A lifetime.
Only a little bit of time is left.
I can feel it in my bones.
Soon, I will come to see you.
I have waited to meet you again since the day you went ahead of me.
I smile.
Soon.
As I sit there a question rises in my mind.
A memory long forgotten.
It was on a normal day.
A simple conversation (or was it a discussion?) with my friends.
One of them had claimed he will never grow old.
Wanted to stay young forever.
Back then we all were of the same opinion.
We didn't want to grow old.
Didn't want to pass on and fade away.
Now I am here.
Asking myself what was once a statement.
My grandchild comes in.
Tells me about school.
I listen.
I laugh.
He and his friends had a talk so similar to the one I had with my friends back in the day.
Decades ago.
Funny, how time passes and generations change but some things still stay the same.
Words and thoughts that are like diamonds.
Forever.
Even so I know.
I need to ask them.
I clear my throat.
Talking has gotten hard.
I speak, my voice raspy.
Ask my grandchild who looks up at me with big eyes.
Who sits on the couch next to me.
I ask them, as the sun shines down on our faces.
I remember.
I know.
Know what I would answer if I asked my teenage self this question.
But time has changed.
Now my answer will be different.
But what about theirs?
I think I know it.
But I still ask.
Do you really want to live forever?
I stand in the kitchen, opening the book filled with recipes passed down to me.
My finger turn the pages till they still at the side of our favorite cake.
Grandmother's cake, everyone just calls it.
I read over the recipe.
And freeze.
A memory rises to my mind unbidden.
Sitting on the couch with you, your wrinkled hands holding onto my young ones, still free of the signs of time.
Your warm smile, the smile that has build me up since I was small, on your face as you go on to ask me a question.
A tear falls down my cheek unbidden.
I wasn't there.
Couldn't say goodbye while you were still breathing even if already beyond awakening.
I was to scared and to young.
I cried at your funeral.
And now the memories come back again.
Even now they still send me tears, even now my heart grieves.
Especially at this one memory.
You asked me a question that day, under the sun.
And I answered with the mindlessness of naive youth.
But now, as I read it again, your question scribbled on the edge of the page of your cooking book, of our favorite cake recipe, with a trembling hand, I can't answer.
I can't answer your question anymore, because I no longer know the answer.
Do you want to live forever?