The sun is floating with dust, and it is another weekend suitable for returning to the cage. My mother was busy in the kitchen, and I was playing by the side, and in the small talk she smiled and asked me if I still liked it so much because I ate too much rotten bamboo with my father when I was a child.
I couldn't think of anything to do with my father, so my mother recalled that when she heard her father in the kitchen holding me young in the living room, she said word by word: "Contentment (bamboo) contentment (bamboo), to be content, so that you can always be happy." "In Cantonese, the rotten bamboo is the bamboo, and the sound is content, so the father will say this." The first time I knew the story behind it, I was also a little surprised, I had always thought that I just preferred rotten bamboo according to my father's taste, but there was a life principle that my father hoped I could learn.
When I create in my mind the picture of the young father sitting in front of the coffee table with my teeth and teeth, I unconsciously fall into the memory. It was the 1990s, and our family of three lived in a bungalow in the North End, and the neighbors were close enough to shout. In the summer afternoon, retired elderly people sit around the stone table playing chess and drinking tea, mothers who are busy with housework gather under the dense banyan trees to play in the shade, and the swings in the nearby small park are always swaying with the joy and laughter of children. At that time, my father had not yet gone to the sea to do business, and he was still a driver, often leaving early and returning late, and he might not be able to meet for several days after running long distances. But every time he called early before he got home, I would happily run downstairs early to wait for him. When I was free, he would lead me to the grocery store around the corner, where a sweet milk popsicle or a few bubble gums would be enough to keep me happy all day. Now, at the age of twenty, I still like sweets and like candy, and I am a child in the eyes of my friends, who especially like gummy, and I always laugh and explain to them: "No way, this is a habit I have developed since I was a child." “
And I know that my father did not read much, which is his regret all the time, so he often taught us to cherish our lives today and study hard to become useful to society. Although he couldn't teach me to recite the sutra and recite the poem, he kept trying to teach us the life lessons he learned in his own simple way, or maybe just put on an apron and cooked a family meal after finishing work. All of this is his way of expressing love as a father, which looks clumsy and simple, but it is extremely heartwarming.
The last time we met, he picked me up and took me home for the weekend. I was fighting with suitcases on the stairs of the overpass. He quipped, "Hey, Hercules!" The next second, the warm hands took the heavy suitcase, as if relieved, I followed behind him, it is not difficult to see that my father is no longer young, his sideburns are stained with white frost because of his busy work, and his back is slightly ridden by carrying the life of the whole family. Although the years passed like water, in my heart he was still the most handsome man, because in the era of the four kings that swept Andy Lau, I was young and proud to announce to everyone that my father was more handsome than Andy Lau! The warmth that surged made my nose sour, and I walked forward quickly, holding my father's other empty hand. He smiled and shook my hand back hard. And I always remember him saying that every time we held his hand, he felt that no matter how tired he was, he would be full of energy, and in his words, this was a happy moment for his father.
That night, the cicadas chirped in the sweltering heat, and the countable stars were dotted with darkness. The two shadows walked hand in hand, but the little shadow with the braids at that time became a big girl with a high ponytail. Yet in my father's heart, I was only his daughter. No matter how old he is, he still likes candy and sweets, and is just a child who is not very smart and a little lazy. As on many ordinary nights, we walked in the direction of home with the shadow stretched by the street lamp.