Yu Ying
When I was five years old, I walked with my mother to Changsha, crossed the Yellow River, went to Zhengzhou, passed through Shaanxi, crossed Pingliang, climbed the Liupan Mountains, and arrived at the place where my father worked when he was young- Longde County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
More than forty years later, that journey to a foreign land that seemed so far away that it seemed to have reached the end of the world is now only a few fragmentary memories left in my mind.
I remember once when I just went out, the flower handkerchief I was holding in my hand was blown away by the wind, and my father ran a long way with the handkerchief flipped in the wind, and it was not easy to help me pick it up next to a big rock; some students heard that the teacher's family came and brought peas from home, where the peas were different from our side, the peas in our hometown field were full of grains, round and jade, and there was a shriveled body, and the beans were very small. The young me glanced at them and said dismissively, "These peas are fake." ”
I vaguely remember going to the local farmer's house with my father's students, and I also saw the scene of people with buckets and basins rushing to fetch water after the hand tractor was dragged up the mountain...
My father graduated from college and went to Ningxia Zhibian, returned to his hometown after more than twenty years, and left us forever after five years, when he was fifty-two years old.
Counting from the time my parents got married, the time they really spent together was these last five years. During these five years, his father's health has been poor, which is not unrelated to the fact that he lived in the great northwest when he was young and materially barren.
Because the father is not at home for many years, we can feel very little father's love, the image of the father in our hearts is a distant foreign land and a wanderer of the wind and dust, so after adulthood, the three of us brothers and sisters have always wanted to go to the place where he once worked, longing for the real things and people there to help us build the real scene of our father's life for many years, so that we can enter and feel the heart of our father, in order to make up for the regret that we were not very intimate with him in the process of growing up.
In July 2010, we finally made the trip. Unlike my father's arduous journey back and forth, we drove ourselves to Ningxia that year, passing through Xi'an, Yan'an, Yinchuan, Hunan and Gansu, crossing Hubei and Shaanxi, and the final destination was Longde County in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. After turning over the Liupan Mountain, which once said that "the mountain is three thousand meters high and the mountain is three thousand zhang, and the danger is two hundred in Qinguan", Lund is close at hand. Happily, it was not the desolate and barren Great Northwest as we imagined, where clouds and mist covered, terraced fields cascaded, green trees, and a tranquility.
Before entering the county seat, we refueled at a gas station, and as soon as we got off the bus, we could clearly feel that the weather there was refreshing and pleasant, and the temperature was much lower than outside the mountain. Locals tell us that the maximum temperature in summer is only 278 degrees, which is a good place to escape the heat.
After greeting the way at the gas station, without any trouble, we went to the Lund County High School where my father had worked and lived for more than twenty years. The school's school gate is simple and generous, the campus is neat and clean, and the plastic track on the playground allows me to see its modern and advanced side. The day we went was summer, and there were teachers and students in the playground rehearsing a program for an event, and the sonorous gongs and drums and the dragon dance crowd conveyed the message of the old and new appearance to the guests in the distance.
When we entered the school gate that day, we were blocked by the doorman, and after we explained our intentions, he took us to see the principal. The principal told us that there were many college students in Longde County Middle School who had successively returned to their hometowns in the 1980s, and even if some people did not return to their hometowns, they must have gone to Yinchuan or Guyuan City, and some of them may have left this world like my father, so it is difficult for us to find my father's acquaintances or colleagues here.
My father was an excellent Chinese teacher, thin and small, and did not speak much in his daily life, but I heard that he stood on the podium and danced with his eyebrows flying, and his teaching was very infectious. His handwriting is also strong and powerful, and his style is vigorous and distinctive. I've seen my father write, but I was young when he left, my older siblings were both working or going to school in different fields, and neither of us had the opportunity to listen to him in class.
Years later, my brother and I both went to teaching positions, and I often thought, if my father was there, we could sit together and talk to each other about teaching, right? However, behind such "ifs", there is only a hidden pain in our hearts after so many years have passed, and we still can't ignore them.
The window of Lund County Middle School introduced that the school's Language Teaching and Research Group has won numerous awards over the past few decades and has achieved remarkable teaching achievements, but can it be said that this also has a father's hard work and dedication in it?
My father left Lund and returned to his hometown to live with us, never mentioning the place in front of us, and we don't even know what kind of feelings he really has for this land. He was silent by nature and rarely communicated with us, but I believe that there must be a lot of feelings and feelings in his heart, and I believe that such a long time will definitely not be a blank for my father. For a person, a place where he has lived for more than twenty years, not his hometown is like a hometown, leaving it, his heart will certainly have pain and reluctance.
At that time, he was far away from his hometown and relatives countless times in such a long period of time, and he went through a long journey alone, from the water town of Jiangnan to the vast plateau of Huangsha, and when he walked alone in the vastness and vastness of a foreign country, he must have missed his hometown and family eagerly; for reality, he must have also had helplessness and sadness that could not be changed.
Because time is too long, even if we have embarked on the land where our father sacrificed his entire youth, his footprints are no longer traceable for us. Lund, which we have been trying to imagine, Lund that we have always longed to be close to, the Father whose hearts have always been outside of our lives and who really touched our hearts, why do we still feel so hard to reach today when we are finally so close to you?
We came here through thousands of rivers and mountains, what exactly are we looking for? My father worked here for more than twenty years, returned home for five years, and now died thirty years ago, his resume in this life is simple, and his personal fate and tragedies and joys are very characteristic of the times, but how should the meaning of his life be expressed?
When we got home, we described the current state of the school to our mother, and she said that when we entered the school, we could see a big tree there. We told her the tree was still there. We stood by the leafy tree that day, and a group of students passed under the tree, one by one, raising their youthful little faces, laughing and laughing all the way, showing a shy expression when they met our eyes. In the whole campus, perhaps only this tree can bear witness to the existence of my father.
After returning from Ningxia, I have always cherished the journey experience of the three of us brothers and sisters; I miss the scenery on the way; I am worried about the land that has little connection with our blood, but because of the footprints of my father, we feel very close to us.
Even, in the daily dullness, I often have difficulty in resisting the urge to go far, and I can't suppress my yearning for a distant place. To this day, I finally understand that perhaps the greatest significance of my father's existence is to guide us far away. We search all the way, in fact, in the end, we are rich in our own feelings and lives.
Therefore, I wrote this article to record the footprints of my dreams, so as to thank and cherish my father.