
◎Qiyan
My father’s efforts did not make my life brilliant. The only function was to let me tell myself when facing any difficulties that there is a bigger world.
1994 is about to end. Suddenly, a blond and high-necked foreigner suddenly appeared on the Muma River embankment. It is a small county town in southern Shaanxi. The adults and children squeezed together and followed, looking at the alien guest from afar.
The foreigner looks middle-aged, not tall, big fat, carrying a bag that is even bulging than his belly and walking along the river. Occasionally, he turns back and waves to a big tree, and the children hiding behind are so scared that they are scattered in all directions. After walking for a while, he took out a set of black guys from his shoulder bag, and after assembling it, he pressed "click" at , Mumahe, and . Informed young people say that it is a high-end camera.
The commotion spread like the wind throughout the dull county town, and police from the police station came to contact foreigners politely and cautiously. The foreigner obviously became interested in the police in uniforms and gestured happily to communicate. But the two of them didn't understand the language and didn't understand the other party's meaning. The police asked the relatives who were English teachers from the county high school to come and translate.
Then I learned that this was an American traveler. Because he was obsessed with Chinese landscapes, he had traveled to most of China. He also came to our county to visit the beautiful scenery here. After saying that, he took out the camera generously and shared the photos he took.
That policeman is my father. After returning home from get off work that day, his expression turned out to be abnormal, without a gentle smile or awkward jokes, he looked at me and watched me again and again with all his heart. I didn't know what he wanted to say, so I sat quietly on the bench and waited.
"Son, what do you...what do you want to do?"
The father asked clumsyly, and I responded with my puzzled eyes.
"I mean, what ideals do you have in the future."
My father's face turned red and finally explained it clearly.
"I want to be a scientist." I have answered this kind of question to teachers and parents since I was a child, and I blurted out the answers that were engraved in my mind.
"No, no." My father shook his head anxiously, obviously not satisfied with my answer, "You have never met a real scientist. How can you be a scientist in the future? Do you still know how many professions there are in this world? My father has never traveled far in his life, and his experience is within the scope of this county. You can't be like me anymore. The outside world is actually very big."
It turned out that in the American camera that day, my father was completely shocked by the colorful world. Those photos include tall cities with towering buildings, prairie like domes, ingenious buildings, beautiful mountains and rivers, engineers who are building bridges, bright young people on campus, and my father also saw the dazzling shopping malls, the magnificent border national gates, the vast smoky Yangtze River ... They are all everything our country has at present, and for the small family in our corner, it seems to be another world.
When he even flipped through the photos of Muma River, his father stayed for a long time. He was so familiar with this river that he could not be familiar with it for more than 30 years, but for the first time he found that the angle from her could be so lively and beautiful.
Looking back at him, it suddenly became a lot of color dimmed. The father's first thought was that he could not let his son feel so lost. He returned the camera to the foreigner with some shame and watched him continue playing respectfully.
He didn't say a word to his mother that night, and lay in bed tossing and turning. At some point in the night, he woke me up.
"Son, the summer vacation is over three days. Dad will take leave tomorrow to take you to the market zoo to play? You are nine years old and have never seen a tiger or lion."
I got up from the blindfold, looked at my father's shining eyes, and nodded fiercely.
From that night, my working-class child has happily had an exploration experience beyond all his peers. I was the first in my class to take the train to travel to the provincial capital Xi'an, the first to sign up for the middle school winter camp, the first to take a plane, the first to use the Internet, and even the first to write a love letter to a girl.
These are all supported by my father squeezing out the "special education fund" from his meager salary. He and my mother had a hard time in those years, but it allowed me to broaden my horizons in luxury. That's right, I understand that on a larger scale, I am not the "first".
More than 20 years have passed. I have studied and worked in cities of all sizes, and have witnessed the development achievements of the country and the customs of the places. I am no longer the boy who knows nothing about the world. But I have only become an ordinary corporate employee. My father's efforts have not made my life brilliant. The only function is to let me tell myself when facing any difficulties that there is a bigger world.
This is enough, it is enough for me to enjoy my life's spiritual wealth.
As early as 2002, my father was in a car accident while going to the countryside to handle a case and died in the deep mountains. For a long time, I was trapped in the pain of missing my father and could not extricate myself. Later I had my own daughter. The first of the educational plans listed was to follow the father's method and let my children see a bigger world. Only then did I let go of the pain because I became a father.
One day I saw on TV that singer Li Jian playing the guitar and singing in a leisurely manner: "So I miss you, the sea is waiting, that river." I couldn't help but burst into tears. My father used to be a river that took me to the distance, but now he is a peaceful and peaceful sea.