One contemplative weekend in the summer, my mom and I visited our grandparents in China. As we entered their apartment, the whole room seemed to creak to life. My grandma got up of her creaky chair to bring us drinks. Although I was intrigued by my grandma’s hospitality, I was more focused on my grandpa, who was sitting off to the side with a broad smile on his skinny face, happily gazing at me and my mom. In one hand, he held a paintbrush, already dabbed with paint, and in the other hand he held down the wrinkly paper he painted on. But when he saw us, he slowly let the paintbrush drop out of his wrinkly hands and onto the wrinkly paper, clearly splotching his artwork. However, he didn’t seem to mind. With a large smile, he got up from his creaky chair and walked towards me and my mom.  His broad smile was captivating. Although some of his teeth were crooked, all of them were clean and strikingly bold. He did not have a forced smile, but instead he had a smile gleaming with experience and determination. It was a smile that he could effortlessly yet genuinely produce whenever he felt like it. It was a smile that let him live joyously through his happy moments in life and propel him through his sad moments. I have been trying to emulate his persistent smile; because of him, I not only smile when I’m happy, but I also smile determinedly when I’m feeling low. Although my grandpa lives in China, he is with me in Plano when I smile.

My grandpa hugged me and my mom, his skinny hands struggling to wrap around our bodies. As he hugged me, I noticed that besides his large smile, my grandpa had large eyes. His eyes were large, radiant, all-knowing, and framed by a pair of huge glasses. There was something about his eyes that made them look very scholarly and virtuous. It was perhaps part of his scrupulous soul that I saw reflected from his eyes, or perhaps his mind was so overfilled with knowledge that some of his wisdom exuded into his eyes; nevertheless, his eyes were filled with the intelligence gained from his younger years as a college professor. He never boasted about his wisdom, instead he was content in being viewed as a simple old man. However, his huge glasses enhanced his scholarly aura, and if one looked at his eyes, one could immediately tell he was an intelligent man.

His wise eyes were contrasted with his wrinkly face; however, his wrinkles were not withered or unpleasant. Instead, his wrinkles were marks of his seemingly boundless knowledge and his love for life. The wrinkles were not repulsive cracks, like strained fissures created from an earthquake, but instead they were strong, deep crevices, like the beautiful bold crevices of the noble Grand Canyon. His wrinkles were well-defined but far from unpleasant. I pictured every time he finished teaching a curriculum or painting a beautiful piece of art, a wrinkle would magically form on his face; the wrinkle would be a reminder or proof of his great accomplishment. It seemed as if he gained his wrinkles not through age but through his wisdom; his wrinkles did not reflect the feelings of stress that may come from old age, but instead it reflected the feeling of wisdom. His wisdom transferred to his physical appearance. Maybe if our minds are energetic and intelligent, our minds can outrun time, counteract some of the possibly negative aspects of old age, and allow us to appear wise instead of withered and old.  I respect my grandpa for always trying to battle time and to live life to fullest. I study and expand my knowledge so that I can live life to the fullest and become more like my grandpa. I want to be smart on the inside and smart on the outside, possibly needing to gain some wrinkles and a set of intelligent eyes to create the scholarly aura my grandpa has.

While hugging us, my grandpa patted my head and stroked my hair, jokingly saying he wished he could borrow some of my youthful hair. My grandpa was almost bald. He did not have a forest of hair. His hair was like two neatly mowed lawns; one humble lawn on each side of his head. Between these patches of grass was a house. This privately owned house was his slightly pointed forehead that stored all his wonderful memories: memories dating back to his tough childhood living in a poverty-stricken family. However, these memories did not deter his positive outlook on life; he would continue to smile and live on, letting the bad times pass on and peacefully settle in his huge mind. He did not necessary forget these bad memories, but he learned to accept them, learn lessons from them, and store them away. This way the memories would be valuable instead of detrimental. My grandpa has never been rich, but I learned from him that rich memories are the ultimate sign of wealth. His shiny bald head always attracted light, and the light seemed to represent his rich memories. When despondent moments occur in my life, I try to smile and store the unpleasant memory into my mind, quickly accepting its unpleasant remembrance and preventing the memory from deterring my life. Adapting my grandpa’s outlook on life has made my life a smooth road paved with smooth memories, not a jagged stressful road filled with unpleasant memories at every twist and turn.

At first glance, my grandpa may look like a simple old man. In some ways he is, but his love for life is so overpowering that he cannot hold it in. He paints as a way to release his powerful feelings. As the weekend ended, my mom and I had to leave. Right before we shut the door, I saw my grandpa pick up his paintbrush that he had previously dropped and left a splotched mark. My grandpa liked to have beautiful memories not splotched ones so he rolled up the unfinished splotched painting and got out a new wrinkly sheet of paper to paint on. I strive to live life lovingly by following my grandpa’s steps of using a new sheet of paper whenever an old paper gets dirty.