"Original" My Father (prose)

Text/Kong Qinggui

My father, who was seventy-nine years old and a horseman, retired in the factory at the age of fifty— the retirement policy that was introduced that year. In order to support the family, my father worked hard for a few years in the wind and rain, and then stopped after the three of us brothers and sisters joined the work. Slowly, life became better, the helplessness and dazedness on the father's face disappeared, what hung was joy and excitement, and what was given to the children was more care and affection.

A few days ago, I re-read Zhu Ziqing's essay "Back Shadow", and I had a different taste for the feeling of reciting "Back Shadow" when I was in high school. In the text, "the back of the father buying oranges for him at the train station" made "Zhu Lao" choke up tears, at that time, I only wanted to read it to move the reader's description, there was no deeper understanding; I have been a father for more than thirty years, at this time I can really understand the hardships and difficulties of being a father, the father in "Back Shadow" is the epitome of the great father of the Chinese nation, let me read and read wet the eyes, and came up with the situation that my father took care of my bag for the first time...

When I was a child, I rarely communicated with my father, and I always felt that the majesty on my father's face was difficult to approach, and my mother liked to nag me about some things, "Grandma Li said, look at your children's faces are kind, long and clever, and when they grow up, they are sure to have a chance...", this sentence I remember most deeply. I don't know if it was to make Grandma Li say accurately, or the needs of that era made me have a "career" - in 1984, just after graduating from high school, I happened to meet the bank recruitment, the opportunity really favored me, I was admitted! Participated in a month of banking training, at the end of the year received the allocation order from the bank's personnel department - to report to the rural grassroots business office, I happily ran to the classmates to play for an afternoon, chatting and chatting unconsciously the sky was dark, the gray sky, the cold weather with snowflakes did not affect my excitement, excitement, classmates were full of heart to keep me for dinner, I said to go home ready to prepare for tomorrow to bring things and left. Told my mother about going to work tomorrow, my younger brothers and sisters happily took one of my hands and circled in the house, and the cool chill also disappeared, adding a little warmth to the winter house. The kitchen of the family is a shed built by my father, which is three or four meters away from the house. There was a little snow outside, and the whizzing northwest wind blew the snowflakes that had just fallen on the roof up again, and also blew the aroma of vegetables into the house and blew into my stomach to cause the worms to stir, and my younger brothers and sisters shouted for me to serve the dish, "Wait for my father to come back and serve it, or the dish will be cold", I advised. When my father got off work, my mother brought scrambled eggs with tomatoes, shredded potatoes, and fried peanuts and rice on the table, and my father asked, "Who is going to come to the family to stir-fry so many dishes?" The mother put down a dish that was brought up and said to her father, "No one is coming, it is our eldest son who is going to work at the bank tomorrow, and congratulate him." Father softly "um" a sound, I looked at my father waiting for him to say something festive, but the father played the snowflakes on his body, took off the coat, went straight to the bedside, bent down, one hand supported the edge of the bed, one hand to the bottom of the bed, took out a bottle of old wine that had been put for many years, the label was yellow, the handwriting was not clear, I vaguely remembered that it was Northeast sorghum wine, my father poured into a tank that could hold more than half a kilogram of drinking water, I knew that my father never drank cold wine in winter, this is the prelude to warm a warm wine, But I had never seen my father warm so much wine. I understood that my father did not say a word of congratulations, but I did not know how happy and excited I was in my heart— his eldest son was at work, independent, and able to earn money to support the family. Father squinted his small eyes, looked at so many good dishes on the table, comfortably clipped and tasted, from time to time took a sip of wine, looked at the mother who brought the dishes and said, "Okay, ok, don't fry, sit down and eat together." The mother promised to "no vegetables, no stir-fry, just fry six, six six big shun" ... , untied the apron and sat down, the whole family happily sat around like the New Year, and the warmth in the house was even stronger.

My father was the third oldest in the family, and the two uncles had followed grandpa to study private school for several years, but my father, my grandfather had let him herd sheep since he was a child, I don't know what grandpa thought at that time, my father just came back from herding sheep and occasionally listened to grandpa talk about "benevolence, righteousness, wisdom and faith", "talk about the Three Character Sutra". Grandpa is an old scholar, long coat, stomping on all four flat and eight steady steps, very personable, the village's joys and sorrows are discussed with him, especially when the Spring Festival is approaching, Grandpa wrote the spring festival to the people in the village the lively scene is no less than the rush to the market, a wave of gone and a wave, the last person who hopes to take the spring league is sent away, it is time for dinner, what makes Grandpa proud is that the more than 2600 "Kong there" villagers represented that year participated in the wedding ceremony held by Kong Xiangxi in Qufu, which shows how high The grandfather's prestige in the village was at that time. The culture that my father learned was mostly ignorant, but what was written on my father's face was always so confident and felt good.

In 1958, my father went all the way from Shandong to the northeast with the army of desert escape, when he was only sixteen years old, a child who should have been spoiled by his parents' side, but thousands of miles away from home to shoulder the burden of independent life, when the country was in the early stage of construction, all kinds of materials were scarce, and the poor and destitute life did not know how many families left their hometowns and were displaced; in 1981, the grandparents were older, their health was not very good, and they had to take care of their grandparents, and the father returned to Shandong "uprooted" At this time, when he returned, his father was already the backbone of the family of five. Father in the northeast for twenty-three years, can be regarded as a small partner in the Kanto "break" success - with a tenacity, diligence, eager to learn, hard to train the welding technology skillfully, all the way to the eighth level of technical titles, then only test practical operation, not test culture class, like welding car fuel tank is more difficult "work", but also the eight level title of the compulsory subjects, the unit is not the father, by the leadership appreciation and attention. My father said that the first time he painstakingly wrote on paper was an application to the party organization, which took three days to change word by word, and read it to his mother many times over and over again, feeling satisfied before handing it over to the organization. The organization quickly sent people to his hometown in Shandong to investigate his father's social relations and family background, and found the fact that my uncle disappeared in three years of natural disasters - there is still no news, which blocked my father's good wishes to join the party and became a regret in my father's life.

My father's face was flushed, and he muttered to me if I had a drink, and my mother gently waved her hand to block the wine glass that my father wanted to bring over, saying, "What kind of wine do children drink at home, eat more dishes." The father raised his neck and drank a cup, looked around a little, and his face appeared confident and good, and his words increased. Three sentences do not leave thinking of me, thinking of me back then..., and then using the tone of education to seriously admonish me, "You have just joined the work, you must listen to the party's words, do a good job, especially the bank work can not be sloppy, do not find trouble for the public, you must be an upright person, rules and regulations will be liked by the leaders" and so on, I really don't know that the father who does not have much culture can still speak the head of the Tao, "upright people, rules and regulations" has become a good family style in my family.

It was nearly nine o'clock in the evening after eating. There were still scattered snowflakes outside the window, scrambling to fall into the roof, branches, and earth under the moonlight... as if they were also integrated into my excited state of mind, and I still remember the scene of that night vividly. Father said, "You go to sleep first, tomorrow you will go to work, the snow road is far and difficult to walk, get up early, don't go late to work for the first time, I and your mother will take the change of clothes and usual supplies you have to bring, pack the boxes and tidy up...". My father removed a green patentwood box from the northeast from the "shock bed" and urged me to go to bed and rest early.

Father took a small hammer, leaned over, looking, looking, probing with his hands, gently tapping every nail on the wooden box, I am afraid which nail missed did not wedge, the snow road is slippery, in case the box falls off the car and falls apart, scattering things on the ground, delaying work time? Or maybe it was my father's lifelong style of doing things—trying to find perfection in everything. I took off my clothes and looked at my father's back, this was the first time I felt that my father was so kind, careful and warm, and I found that my father's white hair had crawled all over my head at close range, which was the "essence" of my hard life; my father hissed his fingers and let my mother leave my room together, crept the door shut, and then took a door with all my strength, "clucking", the door was closed tightly, and my father's love and expectation were permanently engraved in my heart for a moment...

In the blink of an eye, decades have passed, my parents are older, I am about to retire, whenever I chat with my parents, my father still nagged about the "truth" of those things, "If I hadn't thought that I told you so many big truths and usually educated you, you could join the party?" I want to be back then...". My father's optimistic attitude throughout his life, the spirit of not being afraid of hardships, hard work, and independence infected me all my life, and the full of positive energy inspired me to make the afterglow warmer, hotter, and brighter for a longer time...

About authors: Kong Qinggui, member of the Writers Association of the Agricultural Bank of China, a contracted writer of Chinese Writers Online, a member of the Shandong Provincial Essay Literature Society, a member of the Heze Writers Association, a member of the Beijing Miniature Novel Research Association, and has published many articles on China Writers Network, China Poetry Network, China Writers Online, China Financial Writers Association, Capital Financial Literature, Beijing Literature, Fun Pocket, Xinrui Prose, Shandong Financial Literature, Jiaodong Prose Annual Selection, etc. He is currently working in the sales department of ABC Shandong Heze Branch.

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