But what no one expected was that, just half a year later, his great-grandfather followed suit and left them too.
They were indeed old, well into their nineties; they slipped away silently in their sleep, never to awaken again.
The departure of the two elderly gentlemen cast a thick pall of gloom over everyone.
And he, too, shed tears for the second time in his life. He remembered his maternal grandfather teaching him when he was very small that a man should bleed, not cry.
But his mother had also said, "A man has tears but does not lightly shed them—only when the heart is wounded."
He finally understood the true meaning of these words. When someone is truly heartbroken, the tears in their eyes are not something they can control at will.
