Father, I remember...
Author: Huang Yanyan
When I called out to my father, I couldn't help but cry like rain, and I couldn't help it. Father, I miss you, there has been no way to forget.
I remember when I was young, every year during the busy farming season, before dawn, my mother would wake up our brothers and sisters from bed, and then you would take us to the field with us who were still dizzy. You plow the field, and our sisters and brothers follow behind, putting straw in the furrow that comes out of the plough and stepping into the mud as fertilizer for the next crop of rice. We take turns resting, occasionally listening to you hulping and handing you a glass of water, handing you a cigarette, or washing your sweat-soaked towel. And you, who have been directing the old cow to skillfully rotate in the field, tell us your tricks of tuning the cows, and show off your plowing skills. You who plough the field are covered in mud, we are covered in water, and the resentment of being forced to get up has long disappeared in your busy shouting. When the sun rises, a large hilly field is overturned by you, as flat as the lake, and then we kick and stomp home for breakfast. Dad, in our eyes, you are so powerful.
I remember that you took us over the mountains to cut firewood and dig up dead roots for heating in winter. At that time, there was no coal, no liquefied gas, and all was firewood. The firewood that a family needs to use for a few mouths is all up to you and your mother to get back when the farm work is not busy. Therefore, in the winter and summer vacations, we can free up our mother to do things at home and become your helpers in the mountains. In our senses, the mountain is high, big and steep, but with you, you will not be afraid. Deep into the forest, all we can do is help you pick up the roots of the trees that have been dug up, and then, watch the birds in the forest fly into the clouds, watch the timid rabbits flutter in the bushes, and watch the weasels with thieves' heads pass by. Effortlessly, you find one dead tree stumps after another, spit into your hands, and dig with your hoe and axe, while telling us the names, characteristics, and stories of the wild creatures. It's a pity that we, young people, didn't hear your breathing, and we don't know how much effort it takes to work while talking. The work in the mountains was completed quickly, and at that time I often wondered, Dad, why are you so powerful, others often can't get a load in half a day, but we always don't take long to return with a full load. And every time it is like this, can it be that the surrounding mountains and forests are familiar to you as home? You say, of course, I usually pay attention when I chop wood.
I remember, the figure of you picking up the burden. Whether you pick rice, corn, sweet potatoes, or firewood bales, it is always a full load. You are a Hercules, never called heavy, ever called tired. The way you carry your burden on the mountain road and walk like the wind in the fields is still engraved in my mind. You're not big, you're not strong, but watching you move the burden from your left shoulder to your right shoulder and from your right shoulder to your left shoulder as you walk, I think that shoulder must be very painful. It's just that you have a responsibility that you can't unload, so you have been holding on, standing up, and refusing to give up easily. Yes, what is the burden that can be weighed more than a family? Dad, at that time, I often thought, your hard work, when will we be able to share it with you?
I remember that you were playing the gray figure in the rice room. At that time, the village's rice processing workshop had to be contracted for replacement. This work is a technical work, to understand maintenance, to understand the electrician, and because there is too much dust, it has an impact on the human body, so no one is willing to take over. At this time, you have taken this job again. I don't know how you mastered all this in such a situation where there was only primordial Chinese. Maybe you are as invincible as you are in the face of life? From then on, in addition to doing farm work, it is in this processing workshop to find your figure. Every time I see you, you are always white and gray, and even your hair, eyebrows, and beard are white. Dad, if you had a choice, if you knew how to protect yourself, you wouldn't have a hard time breathing when you were in your sixties because of emphysema, right?
Of course, I remember you and your friends getting together to play lively. In the countryside, no matter how busy you are, there are times to sit down. You guys, you guys, always get together when you lose your farm work, you pull the erhu, he beats the gong, he beats the drum... Melt the toil of life into the most simple folk music, high or low or long or short or slow or urgent. The people of the village will be drawn to you, intoxicated by your songs, shaking their heads, beating beats, humming and singing. It seems that the days have never been tired, not busy, not hard. People's hearts are yearning for the good, Dad, your music, but it ignites their love and belief in life? Such gatherings always take a long, long time to disperse, and such nights do not know how many people have remained in their hearts. Dad, I still remember the beautiful and pleasant music you squinted your eyes and pulled out with your rough hands, those notes, all jumped and vividly, making me feel that life is very sweet. I just don't know how you, who have never read the score, pulled that erhu out of the gods. Dad, you're really god!
Of course, I remember that I graduated from elementary school and was admitted to a county-level middle school dozens of miles away. You and your mother rode bicycles and dragged quilt boxes to send me to school. Dad, do you remember when you had a fight with the school's vice principal for me? The reason was that the vice-principal wanted me to live in the upper bunk and give the lower bunk we had occupied first to his relative's children. You are not willing, you are afraid that your daughter who left home for the first time will sleep on the bunk and fall down, afraid that she will be wronged the first time she leaves home, afraid that she will be bullied the first time she leaves home, so you and the leader of "eating state food" who never quarrels with others quarreled fiercely, and finally let me live in the lower bunk. Dad, you are so tall.
I remember coming home from my first week of boarding, and on the way I met you on a bicycle to pick me up, and I couldn't help but cry. The feeling of homesickness was too painful, and I said that I wanted to transfer to the township-level middle school next to my home to study running school, and no longer be tortured by the day and day. I don't remember how you persuaded me, but in the end I wrote my letter of running away from home, but I finally finished my three years of boarding at that school. Dad, when you watch your daughter cry, you must not be able to bear it, right? But how did you, the peasant in the middle of nowhere, convince yourself to convince me? Could it be that he has already tasted the hardships of life and wants his sons and daughters to get rid of this farm gate and get rid of this bitterness with their backs to the sky facing the loess? That's why I insisted hard, let me be here, and successfully entered the most ideal school in your heart at the beginning - a teacher training. To this end, you also hosted several tables of dinner and hosted all the teachers, including the vice principal who quarreled with you. Father, in your opinion, sending your children, one by one, to the mountains, away from the tiredness you have experienced, is the goal of your life struggle?
Dad, you are tenacious, stoic, optimistic, and powerful. I've never seen you weak and vulnerable.
You are a mountain, no matter how barren, standing there, silently giving us the most solid reliance.
You are a big tree, even if you are old, standing there, wordlessly giving us the most solid dependence.
Dad, they all say that my daughter is my father's lover in her previous life, and she is a sweet little cotton jacket for her parents, but I know that my daughter is not competent at all. Our sisters and brothers have all started a family outside, and only you and your mother stay at home and become empty nesters. Over the years, our so-called filial piety and intimacy are just a few phone calls a week, a few visits a year, and a few dollars that are not generous. You and your mother are in that nest, like two tired beasts, clinging to each other for their lives. Again, we will never be told any news that will make us uneasy unsettled unless we have to.
A few years ago, when you came home for the New Year, you were not as big as before, you didn't like to move, you didn't like to talk, you just wanted a few of us to live at home for a long time. How long can I stay? When we pack up our things, carry you full of love and reluctance to leave, see your figures getting farther and farther away and smaller, standing at the door of the house for a long time, when did our sisters and brothers not have their hearts twisted?
Who says a child is a debt?
Parents must have owed their children a debt in a past life, so they used this life to pay it back.
But when will we pay the debts we owe to our parents in this life? And how can it be clear?
I always thought that I would come to Japan for a long time, and I always thought that there would be more times to fulfill my filial piety. But I didn't know that our father, who had always been so miraculous and mighty in our hearts, was actually old and weak day by day, until one day, he quietly left us and would never come back. Then, for a long, long time, heartache and tears will tell you how heavy and inexplicable it is to "let the tree want to be quiet and the wind is not stopping, and the son wants to raise and not to be kissed."
Father, can you hear our call? In this deep and shallow and endless thought, we pray with our hearts that you are in heaven and that everything is all right; we pray that we are connected by blood and heart, that you can see our thoughts, and we feel that you are still around.
About the Author
Huang Yanyan is a senior Chinese teacher in primary and secondary schools. In his spare time, he likes to use some small words to write the warmth and poetry in his eyes. Always believe that love and words are the most beautiful practice of the soul. Some articles have been published in media such as "Light Energy" and "Essays on Good Articles in China".
Image: Network