One month before I came to the USA, I was struggling with my final exam. One afternoon, right after my last class of the semester, I received a phone call from my mum. She spoke in a higher tone, though it sounds unperturbed.
“Hey, what are you doing now?”
“Preparing for the exam, what’s up?”
“You father was in an operation, and you’d better come to see him, I mean, if you are free this afternoon.” She slowed down herevery word in a controlled pace.
“Why?! He’s a surgeon; it’s so common for him to perform an operation.”
“What I mean is, your father was operated on by others! The bones on his back are dislocated! And the operation was just finished. Now, do you understand me?” Her tone turned to be disturbing.
“What? Oh my god! How could that happen? Tell me where the ward is, I’m coming right now!”
It was my first time to see my dad lying on the ward bed, and gradually a big smile came to his pale face.
”Hey, you’re so fast. No class?”
“No class today, though tomorrow there will be an exam.”
“OK, then you had better go back to school soon.”
He didn't change the way he conveyed himself even in such a situation.
 |
| The ward |
There was sweat on his forehead, and sometimes he knitted his brow, because of the stabbing pain from the wound. I believed that happiness could diminish the pain and sorrow, so I tried to find every means to make him laugh. I showed him my newly-bought fake glasses which only had a frame, without eyeglasses; I told him that our teacher used an example of her son to criticize the social phenomenon; I read him some jokes on the Internet just like what he did when I got fever.
“You know, when I was a little girl, every time the jokes you read made you laugh, but made me fall asleep. Because the jokes you chose were too hard for a little girl to understand. Fortunately, I am now a good joke reader.”
Silently he smiled.
“Thank you.”
 |
| The book my dad used to read for me |
 |
| The feeling when my dad said "Thank you" |
No comments:
Post a Comment