Searching in dreams at the end of the world
【Thanksgiving Praise】4
Walking on this grass, recalling the days we shared. "Dad," in my dream, I had a silent conversation with you. I missed you holding me with your thick hands and looking at me with that full smiling face...
Chirping birds, blooming flowers, and rolling white clouds gradually fade out of the camera. He came from the vast grassland, a piece of vibrant green. The camera zooms in... "Dad!" Long time no see! He walked as fast as he could, without any of the sluggishness he had after a stroke. There is a familiar smile on my face, and my friends all say that I look like him, with a smiling face.
The day my father suffered a stroke, I happened to be at my parents' house. He went to exercise early in the morning and when he came back, he said that his legs were weak and he had to hold on to the railing to climb the stairs to the living room on the second floor. After sitting for a while, he said he couldn't lift one hand... After being sent to the hospital, the suspicion of stroke was confirmed.
I took my one-year-old daughter to the hospital to see him. "I'm disabled!" He said, "If I'm disabled, I'm disabled. What's the point of living?" He has never asked for help, and he doesn't want to become disabled in old age and be a drag on his family and children. "Dad!" I said, "Every time I walk by your room, see your bed, and know that you will come back after being discharged from the hospital, this is good news to me. You are here, which is good news." Dad was very hurt. Me, seeing that I brought my daughter back to Taiwan, it was good news to him.
After being discharged from the hospital, he began rehabilitation; three weeks later, he could walk independently and return to work at his home clinic. During the rehabilitation period, he had difficulty moving and slept on the treatment bed on the first floor. His brother and brother often came to give him massages. Dad has a big body, but I am small and have no strength in my hands. A two-minute massage is enough. Dad doesn't care, as long as his daughter is by his side for "moral support."
One day, my mother brought lunch downstairs to my father first, and I was carrying the soup behind me. Before I stepped through the door, I heard my father ask my mother: "Have you eaten, girl?" My eyes felt warm, and I rushed to answer through the door: "Eat." "Yeah..." Dad is like this. His wife and children always come first, and he comes second. Even when I was lying in the hospital bed, I was still thinking about the trivial matters of our three meals. He came to Taiwan from the mainland alone, and we are his only relatives. "If I don't love you, who else will I love?" he said.
Young boy left home
Dad was "caught" into the army and served as a soldier. He was only seventeen years old at the time, and his grandmother wrapped a few hard-boiled eggs and a few sticks in a large handkerchief and sent him to the train station. That was the last time he saw his loving mother.
The mountains and rivers of my hometown have changed color, and I can only return to my home in my dreams. After coming to Taiwan, the Qingming Festival and Hungry Ghost Festival are the saddest days for him every year. The two sides of the Taiwan Strait are separated, there is no news at all, and life and death are even more uncertain. Should we set up a memorial to worship our ancestors, or pray for them to live a safe life? I saw the strong father secretly wiping away his tears.
After I entered middle school, my father took out the ancestral tablet and a brush and asked me to write down the family tree on the back of the wooden tablet: "In this way, when you return to your hometown in Sichuan, you will find our relatives." That wooden tablet became The umbilical cord that connects him to his family.
Dad loves to sing Chinese operas. He drinks tea and sings Chinese operas to relieve his homesickness. "The brave generals of the Three Kingdoms, Zhao Zilong is the first, and he is called... a hero in front of Changbanpo." Or sing "Su San, left Hongtong County, and came to... in front of the street." Folktales and histories one by one. The novel was engraved in my mind while I was watching dramas with my father. After having my own child, I hummed a lullaby while holding the baby in my arms: "The Three Kingdoms Warriors..." The baby's milky head followed the music, snuggled up to my neck, and kissed me gently. Make a small call.
▲Yu Zhen (left) and her mother visited Taiwan’s scenic spots.
Bow down for your son
Dad loves his children to the core. My brother loved to cry when he was a child. He would often cry loudly in the middle of the night, so his father would take him out for a walk. This happens every night, rain or shine.
My father has never asked for help in his life, but he knelt down and begged the class teacher for his son's sake, asking him to spare his son a major mistake. That year, my brother was in sixth grade. Just after the New Year, he put his lucky money and mine together and bought a big calendar-like "Drawing Lottery" with hundreds of small paper signs on it. He went to school and asked his classmates to flip one. Two cents, pocket money to spend; this is against school rules.
The tutor of his class was a veteran, and he treated the pupils as soldiers, publicly humiliating them, punishing them corporally and adding demerits. There was no "self-reliance" in those days. If you encountered a bad teacher, no matter how unfair you were, you had to admit it. Dad has seen what he does in the military, how can he be willing to let his son suffer?
He is a military doctor who does not flatter or flatter others. When he is discharged from the army, he still "qualifies" as a captain. Fortunately, the government allows military doctors to take the private medical examination after retirement. After passing the examination, they can practice their own medicine. At that time, I was taking the high school entrance exam and he was taking the license exam. Father and daughter study together, and he studies much harder than me. I remember that time, I wrote in my weekly diary: "It was the first time I noticed that my dad was old. Today when our family was outing and having a barbecue, my tall dad was sitting low down on the big rock by the stream reading, and I realized that the top of his head was somewhere unknown. I was bald..."
After getting the license, I opened a clinic in the countryside. I attended clinics during the day and had to get up in the middle of the night to see emergency patients. It was really busy. Perhaps it was days like this that made him die early at the age of sixty-eight.
I still remember that day, I called him from the United States and asked him for advice on how to make his specialty dish: braised tofu. We were chatting happily on the phone, and my dad also made fun of me for almost setting the pot on fire when I was learning to cook before going abroad. I am grateful that my father always comes to the rescue and never blames his children loudly no matter what mistakes they make.
The next afternoon, I received a call from Taiwan. Dad took a friend's motorcycle to listen to the president's political views on opening up democratic elections. He caught wind and cold on the way, suffered a second stroke in the middle of the night, and left.
Sunset watched off
Taking a walk at dusk, watching the sunset cover the sky with its gorgeous rosy colors, I felt that the setting sun was just like my father's old age - there was no energy waiting for the morning sun, nor the dazzling glare of noon, only a gentle invitation to slow down. , appreciate and appreciate the richness and beauty he once had, and then watch him travel far away in the afterglow.
It has been fifteen years since my father passed away. When I told my children about my grandfather, I realized that many of the details were no longer in my memory. As I wander around middle age, I deeply realize that time flies by and I am just a passerby from EMI. It is our responsibility to sort out the videos and videos left by our father and write down his unspoken love so that future generations can follow it.
Walking on this grass, recalling the days we shared. "Dad," in my dream, I had a silent conversation with you. I missed you holding me with your thick hands and looking at me with that full smiling face...