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By GARY BLAIRPublished 10 months ago 4 min read
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His father was a doctor in the country all his life, retiring only at the age of seventy-five.

The retirements are largely due to the fact that, with health insurance, people in the village flock to the big nearby hospital for all their ailments, as well as population migration and the thinning of old patients.

My mother often joked that the only patient my father had now was himself. His symptoms were autism, he did not go out, he did not speak, and his only activity was playing Weiqi with himself.

His father had hoped that at least one of his children would become a doctor, but all three disappointed him: his younger brother, who played piano in elementary school but never became a virtuoso, now owns a recording studio and listens to others play every day.

She worked as a TV reporter for a while, married a second-generation entrepreneur, divorced, and used her alimony to run a bilingual kindergarten.

His father once complained that it was his eldest son bad example, high school grouping no matter how his father threatened to lure, he still insisted on reading liberal arts, after entering the newspaper office, post ups and downs, until now looking at the newspaper industry flapping.

In fact, their mother had told them, their father's most common complaint was that nothing the three children did "helped the farm."

However, over the past decades, such complaints gradually decreased. What was more unexpected was that when his son chose medicine and passed the exam with high marks, his father was not surprised, but simply said: "Silly boy, only in this era to choose such a tough road."

On New Year's Eve, the mother said "three Taipei branch" three families have returned to their hometown before dusk. Her sister, two daughters-in-law, and several granddaughters nearly packed the kitchen, where they all sat on their hands and knees, listening to their mother's account of a cruise to Alaska they had taken with their father. His younger brother was tuning the old piano in the living room, tinkling with his annual ritual of coming home for the New Year, while the other boys were leaning on the old sofa and grandfather's clinic chair, reading comics and playing video games.

My father seemed to have nothing to do with the family, moving his orchids from the second-floor balcony. He looked through the screen door at his father's old figure, his back bent, unable to take a step.

When he handed the whisky to his father and asked him to take a rest, his father just smiled and took the glass. When he told his father that his eldest son had to be on duty and would not return until the night of the first day, his father only said, "The resident doctor... If it's hard work, you can't finish all the tasks..." After a long pause he asked again, "When I come back... Are there any traffic jams on the freeway?"

"No." 'he said.

Then both men looked in silence at what used to be endless rice paddies, but now the fields of cottage-like houses rose everywhere.

When he turned to look at his father as the evening closed in, he was surprised to see that his father had turned around and, after taking a quiet sip of wine, seemed to be trying very hard to find a topic of conversation. At last he said, "When I come back... Are there any traffic jams on the freeway?"

"No." "He answered him again.

After the family reunion dinner, the grandchildren found that the red envelope that Ah Gong had left for his brother was twice as thick as their own. They laughed and said Ah Gong was partial to the doctor. He had already washed down five or six glasses of water with whiskey.

Father used to bath before going to bed, at that time everyone crowded in the second floor and room with Gammy chat, pick up the red dot, bath father suddenly opened the paper door smiling and said: "You are tired to go to sleep, such as congratulator time, I call you."

Everyone was suddenly quiet, for my father looked as if he had something to say. After a long wait, he shyly said, "Look how happy everyone is.

He said: Those were the most emotional words of my father's life, but they were also the last.

When they heard the sound of He Zheng's firecrackers, far and near, and their father had not yet gone upstairs to call them, they found him rear-ended comfortably on the sofa, asleep forever.

His expression seemed to be smiling, the TV was on, and the NHK symphony was playing the very music my father used to squint to over a shot of whiskey after his doctor's visit, Viervati's "Four Seasons."

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