In the Chinese textbooks of primary schools, the introduction of fathers always mentions "father's love is like a mountain", why is father's love a mountain? Because of his tall and resolute, he carried the life of a family, because he was silent and speechless, he endured the hardships and hardships of life, because he was not good at expressing, and his love was deep but less pronounced. Completely different from today's young dads, older fathers rarely get along with their children like friends, and the feelings between father and son are the same but not the same.
"Letters with Father" is a collection of essays written by Xiang Xun, mainly recording his daily life with his father, focusing on the story of his father being diagnosed with lung cancer until his death, so he misses his father. The father figures in Xiang Xun's prose are the most typical Chinese fathers, who have the absolute majesty of their fathers when they are young, but become extremely cramped in their old age, longing for the company of their children, but afraid of becoming a burden.
Xiang Xun's father was a loyal and honest farmer who grew up in a small village with many people and little land, and experienced the famine years, and the family often faced the embarrassment of not having enough to eat. Faced with the situation of villagers fighting for land in order to survive, the honest man of the father also had to fight to defend the land and fight with the uncle, which may be one of the few battles in the father's life.
Father and mother finally survived the difficult years, they kept reclaiming wasteland, renting land, and finally being able to fill the family's stomach, the children also went out of the village and became young people living in the big city, but the father was sick, and this disease made the biggest hero of the family begin to panic and be afraid, uneasy and cowardly.
Xiang Xun's depiction of his father's medical treatment in the big city is directly poignant, his father does not want to live in an inn for more than one hundred and one night because he wants to save money, he wants to go to those small hotels of twenty or thirty yuan several times; he wants to go to the zoo to watch animal performances but misses it because the hospital examination time is up, and often mentions regret; his father goes to the temple to pray for blessings and loudly says that he hopes for his good health; when he arrives at the hotel, he counts all the money several times and gives it to his son; he only dares to lose his temper with his mother when he feels that he is seriously ill. The depiction of these details portrays a typical Chinese father image in a beautiful way, and the old man mentality of relying on his children in old age makes the reader feel doubly distressed.
My father is in his fifties, he is very similar to the author's father, he has been a kind person all his life, he will not argue with anyone easily, and he never says he loves me. My father loves me in a very special way, every time I come home I will say that I want to eat this, want to eat that, my father will always reject me with a look of disgust, but after going out, he will buy things back, afraid that I don't know and will say to me: "So what I bought back and put it where, not for you, you don't want to eat." ”
I don't know when it started, as we grew older, my father no longer forcefully asked us to do this and that, but in the face of this rapidly developing society, they were a little afraid of using smart phones, they didn't know how to understand the problems began to ask us for advice, the former guardians became the object of our care, maybe all Chinese fathers are like this, they have given all their lives, but in their old age they are afraid of their children's impatient eyes.
Attached to the book is a letter to Xun to his father, in which Xiang Xun told his father who had passed away about the latest situation of the family and was also expressing his thoughts, these words may have been said when his father was alive, he never said it kindly, and these unexpressed love intentions are the regrets of Xiang Xun's life, so there is this collection of essays that bring together the father's love.
At the end of the book, Xiang Xun says, If your father is still here, please give him a hug. The saddest thing in the world is that the child wants to be raised and does not wait, if time permits, often go home to see.