on regret

I wrote this elsewhere about a week ago. The feeling has not diminished in the least. I wish there's some way to directly communicate with my grandmother still. No wonder some people get into seances and stuff.

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諷刺的是，本週算是這學期的最後一周。

我去年九月回台那天立刻開始教這學期的第一堂課。一個月後，在拜訪外公外婆時，外婆表達了一個心願: 請我記錄她的生命歷史（從她母親的背景開始）。她是如此渴望，那時當場就開始述說她母親的家庭，直到其他在場的人跟我們說，現在時間不合適，我們要出門了。我告訴外婆，我們以後有更多時間時再繼續。

因為我的新工作和老二還在我大部分全職照顧下，我決定這學期先把重點放在安排調整好我的工作/家庭互動。記載我外婆的人生為這學期結束之後的重要項目之一。

這學期已要畫上句點，只等我提交所有班級的總成績。但最終我的外婆也只有這學期一段時間與我們同在這世。

我爸說遺憾的定義就是永遠無法贖罪的感覺。我非常非常非常的遺憾，自己如此的愚蠢。

It's ironic that this week is the finals week of the fall term. I came back to Taiwan from a three-months-long visit to the US to start teaching immediately that day at the first week of the fall term. A month later, during a visit to my grandparents, my grandmother expressed her desire for me to document her life story (starting with her mother's life history).

She was so eager to begin that she started on her mother's birth circumstances right then and there until the others with us said there's no time right then and I told her we'll pick it up later. With my return to work while Petra is still at home under my mostly full-time care, I decided to focus on balancing my work-life-family responsibilities; I would make chronicling my grandmother's life a priority after this term ends.

This term ends when I submit all the grades by next week. But in the end my grandmother only had this term left to her life on earth.

The definition of regret is never being able to atone for something that could have so easily been otherwise. I regret, so much. It consumes me every time I remember.