Paternal weight

These days, there has been a shadow in front of my eyes, occasionally but clearly shaking, let me uneasy, let me tears, let me reflect.

That shadow is my father. He seemed to keep mumbling and trying to tell me something. I listened so hard, but I heard nothing. I even some fear, I have been very hard and strong life, is it what happens to chaos my clear and pure mood, or how will be so fragile, so that disturb the father of the kingdom of heaven?

Father has been dead for five years, really do not know what happened to him in his heaven? It had been some time since I had thought of him so deeply and fatherly.

My father had always been a weak and retiring man. In my memory, my father was silent most of the time, leaning on the side of the crowd also watching the lively, afraid of disturbing others, everyone with a light smile. Everyone could shout his name at the top of their lungs, far away or close, in return for his thin, halting "ah, ah" response. It is the father's surroundings and actions, has been let us do children, fragile life, hard growth.

Most of the village attributed my father's weakness to my mother, saying that my mother's strength showed off my father's weakness. My mother never accepted that view. My mother's theory was simple: a man's casual surrender was like handing over the yardstick to his opponent, and a rural man like my father could not be defended without his vigorous farming skills. My father is responsible for both of these weaknesses. So it can only be stubborn mother silently picked up those who should belong to his father's farm work and neighborhood skills. Over time, the roles of father and mother in our village became inverted, and the weight of the father became somewhat skewed. We children have felt this since we were very young.

In fact, my father's situation was because he was a carpenter. A typical individual artisan does not practice farm work at the same time. Just because of the origin of good ingredients, humble people, skills, just to the mouth of the plastic monument, a good person, otherwise the big things really did not speak what share. Of course, when it comes to my father's handicraft, from the former handicraft cooperative to the later ten Li Eight townships, not the peak can be said to be comparable. Every class in the industry, he is unimpenetrable and unimpenetrable. Even a few of our brothers, in the constant influence, do a door frame was once familiar with the road.

Maybe mother was right. Although my father was born in the countryside, he was a "farmer", but all the year round to the team on the door to others carpentry work, never on the field of planting seedlings and digging potatoes, basically belongs to the "four times" do not distinguish "five grains" people. So all the time, his life attitude is not quite appropriate, always some of the "unprofessional" commitment. Remember in the early eighties of the last century just implemented the "contract production to the household" that year's spring ploughing, father "forced" under the paddy field flat seedling. He was unable to level off the muddy fields with straight rope skills for more than half a day, delaying the spring planting time of several imprudent arm engendered members of my family, and making my stubborn mother laugh and laugh.

Fortunately, my father attached great importance to his skills and practiced them exquisitely, thus gaining the rare respect of the villagers for a long time. Club new house just do, are waiting for him to seal the beam. West home to marry a woman, the 18 dowry are competing to ask him to do last ten days and a half month. The family map is his live diamond and durable porcelain work, and the father is his years of quality of pure Qi sewing on the falcon spirit. He can even use only a line saw and a file in a common camphor wood bed pull play left cut right file vivid Longfeng Chengxiang, can also at any time ink in the people just completed the building before the eaves left drawing right on a row of plump fresh Fulu birthday picture. These are far from the basic lessons and skills of a carpenter.

My father is also a good hand to teach, for art for decades, it can be said that the teaching of the art has a prescription, students and plum. I remember once, when I was about 14 or 15, my father tried to pull a big saw with him. My father's smile seemed crafty in response to my misalignment and force, so that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't pull the sharp, slippery saw. Then, in a murmur, he told me the principles and tricks of the sawing process: lean the bow, push and pull, teeth in line with the ink. In this way, as the sawdust fell from one to another, the board was gradually revealed clearly. Now thinking about the old and thinking about the new, I even realized some of the truth to treat people. Maybe my father taught me these principles, but he used the method of craftsman and the attitude of craftsmanship.

Father is also very strict, probably he held too much in the outside too long too active reason, we have been so thought. For example, do not eat loudly, do not hold the bowl against the door. For example, a table with horizontal stripes is not allowed to stand up, and tools in the toolbox are not allowed to be cluttered. In order to separate the disorderly heart miscellaneous, gave us a lot of mistakes, get scolded get beat. Often like that, there is always a mother's voice, which rules, who let you do not long memory! In the heat of an argument, my father would often berate us and my mother with lost authority, and make some easily accessible possessions crack and thunder. Neighbors often appear in a timely manner, or point or guard three cover four, a moment at home romance has become a drama to fight for martial arts.

I've never been able to figure out why or when I clearly understood my father better than my mother, or my brothers and sisters, even though I knew very well that my mother was much more useful to me and to my family. That was the case after I left them for college, went to work, started a family and became a father myself. I'm sure my mother sensed these subtle differences very clearly. I do not have that kind of father love is a mother's love is the difference between the meaning, also not because of the father's "weak" and deliberately paranoid one of the school, what all say not clear. Filial piety is just a kind of responsibility, a kind of obligation, a kind of endowment, a kind of innate emotion, is not equal to each other.

I still talk about two things that happened to me and my father. When I was thirteen or fourteen years old, everything happened naturally because of my father's "weakness". At that time, the craftsmen in our production team is not a first-class labor (men in the prime of life), the file workers earn only less than women every day. If it is in the team or people to do the work is the pay to turn into minutes. In this way, we have a lot of children, at the end of the year a share of the harvest is less, to fool us a few young teeth and mouth is really sad bad mother. Fortunately, there is still a small plot of private land, the end of autumn can always harvest on the sweet potato. There was nothing she could do. Most of the time she cooked sweet potato gruel for us, and at the worst times she would add rice bran and sprouts to the thick rice to cope with our empty stomachs. My father would think of ways to supplement the rations silently at that time. Once before the Spring Festival, my father came back wrapped in a packet of noodles, the black soil noodles exudes an attractive fragrance, enough to weigh three to five jin. He shrugged off the mother's dissuasion and made a pot of it. That time, I firmly enjoyed a never had too full feeling, the feeling of being supported, a night clank a stomach can not sleep.

They say hunger feeds like a Wolf. It means that hungry people will eat anything they can find. When I was a child, I was an exception to fat. Sniffs were okay, but kisses were not, unless they were lard mixed with dry rice. Perhaps my father, seeing me as a dead rib, had been trying to trick my little mouth with threats and riches, and had failed. That Spring Festival, he thought that there must be a brave man under the reward, the first five cents to 50 cents in exchange for me to eat a piece of fat meat he picked, let me back to the timid. Later, I do not know when and why I changed this taboo, but every time I think of my father, no matter when he was born or after his death.

Father was a typical smoker and drinker, with a natural and formidable penchant for smoke and liquor. I analyzed that this was probably due to the respect of the villagers for his craft, and for him, it was just what he wanted, so he never got tired of it. Whenever I worked in the village, no matter when I took a short break before or after meals, the owner would offer carefully cut tobacco or paper cigarettes (cigarettes) that he managed to accumulate later, in exchange for his father's faster pace, less waste and more wonderful technology. As for the wine, whether it is white roast or rice wine, it is to ask the guest slaughter chicken to watch the next dish, including the morning warm-up, the noon fatigue, and the evening work, all have to serve three or five cups. It was a tribute to carpentry as well as to his father's fame. Later, when I started working and had an income, every time I went home or visited my family, I would bring some to my father. I could clearly see the sunny smile on my father's face when he sucked it up. After I quit smoking in 2002, I tried to have a serious conversation with him about quitting, only to be buffooned by the "piece of fat" allusion. But who would have expected that? Five years later, a lonely night trip abruptly curbed my father's admiration for cigarettes and alcohol.

That time, love lively father hand electric swaying like sunrise and sunset to the neighborhood to pick up the household, but otherwise to fall. After going to the rural clinic, the doctor gave a conclusion of hypertension and a notice to quit smoking, drinking and taking medicine on time. My father accepted it with awe and said goodbye to his life of smoking and drinking. When I returned home to see him, my father had a pair of crutches under his arm, and he was only eighty years old that year.

Many times during her lifetime, mother expressed regret over the accident. Every time she will give me a list of the subtle changes of my father, with tears told me, from then on, my father will often silently holding mounted photos of me and my family he carved the essence of the picture frame muttering words muttering cross Yan vertical can not help. And I was more and more deeply felt the father's helplessness, I have almost can't see his light simple and honest and vigorous, I accelerated the home section together.

However, every time I returned home to see my father, I felt him so gently gently more and more confused to stare at me, but it is clearly afraid of disturbing my home mood. He tried so hard every time to relax but has been unconsciously tensed up his simple and simple smile with a slight forehead. I knew he was struggling to feel the sudden appearance of his son and his subsequent departure. He must be saying, home is the son's expectation, travel is the father's sustenance!

These days, there is always a shadow in my mind, clear and occasionally shaking. The shadow was my father, who had been whispering something to me, and I had been listening carefully.