It has been more than two years since I last saw my father, and the last thing I can't forget is his back.
That winter, my grandmother died and my father's errand was handed over. It was a day when misfortune never comes singly. I went from Beijing to Xuzhou and planned to go home with my father for the funeral. When I went to Xuzhou to see my father, I saw the mess in the courtyard and thought of my grandmother again, and I couldn't help but shed tears. My father said, "It's what happened, so there's no need to be sad. Fortunately, there's always a way out!" He went home and sold off the mortgage, and his father repaid the loss; he also borrowed money to pay for the funeral. These days, the family situation is very bleak, half because of the funeral and half because of the father's unemployment. After the funeral, my father was going to Nanjing to find a job, and I was going back to Beijing to study, so we went together.
When I arrived in Nanjing, a friend asked me to go sightseeing and stayed for a day. On the morning of the second day, I had to cross the river to Pukou and get on the train in the afternoon to go north. Because my father was busy with work, he had decided not to see me off and asked a familiar waiter from the hotel to accompany me. He repeatedly asked the waiter to be very careful. But he finally felt uneasy, fearing that the waiter might be inappropriate; he hesitated for a while. In fact, I was already twenty years old at that time and had already been to Beijing two or three times, so it wasn't that important anymore. He hesitated for a while and finally decided to send me there himself. I repeatedly tried to persuade him not to go, but he just said, "It doesn't matter, it's not good for them to go!" We crossed the river and entered the station. I bought the ticket and he was busy taking care of the luggage. There was too much luggage, so I had to tip the porter to get through. He was busy negotiating the price with them again. I was really too smart at that time, and I always felt that what he said was not very nice and I had to interrupt myself. But he finally agreed on the price and sent me to the car. He picked out a chair for me by the car door; I spread the purple fur coat he made for me on the seat. He told me to be careful on the road and to be alert at night so as not to catch cold. I also asked the waiter to take good care of me. I secretly laughed at his pedanticness; they only recognized money, and trusting them was just free money! And for someone as old as me, can't I still take care of myself? Well, now that I think about it, I was so smart back then!
I said, "Dad, let's go." He looked outside the car and said, "I'm going to buy some oranges. You stay here and don't move around." I saw a few sellers waiting for customers outside the fence on the platform over there. When you get to the platform over there, you have to cross the railway, jump down and climb up again. My father is a fat man, so it would be more troublesome to walk there. I was going to go, but he refused, so I had to let him go. I saw him wearing a black cloth cap, a large black cloth mandarin jacket, and a dark blue cloth cotton robe. He staggered to the side of the railway and slowly leaned down. It was not a disaster. But it was not easy for him to cross the railway and climb to the platform over there. He clung to it with both hands and retracted his feet; his fat body leaned slightly to the left, showing an effort. At this time I saw his back, and my tears flowed down quickly. I quickly wiped away my tears. Afraid that he would see it, and also afraid that others would see it. When I looked outside again, he had already hugged the scarlet orange and walked back. When crossing the railway, he first scattered the oranges on the ground, climbed down slowly, then picked up the oranges and walked away. When I got here, I quickly went to help him. He walked with me to the car and put oranges on top of my fur coat. So I puffed away the dirt on my clothes, feeling very relaxed. After a while he said: "I'm leaving. I'll write you a letter over there!" I watched him go out. He walked a few steps, turned around, saw me, and said, "Go in, there's no one inside." When his back blended in with the people coming and going, and he couldn't be found anymore, I came in and sat down, and my tears came again.
In recent years, my father and I have been traveling here and there, and the situation at home has deteriorated day by day. He went out to make a living as a young man, supported himself by himself, and did many great things. Who knew Laojing was so decadent! He was so sad that he couldn't help himself. When he is depressed in his heart, he will naturally express it outwardly; trivial matters in his family will often make him angry. He gradually treated me differently than before. But after not seeing each other for the past two years, he finally forgot about my faults and only thought about me and my son.After I came to the north, he wrote a letter to me. He said in the letter: "I am in good health, but my arm hurts badly, and I have a lot of inconveniences in lifting chopsticks and pens. I think my death is not far away." When I read this, in the glistening tears, I saw the back of the fat man in the green cloth cotton robe and black cloth mandarin again. well! I don't know when I will see him again!
