Chapter 6 father was a romantic poet

I was born when my father was thirty-six and my mother was twenty-eight. Because I was the first daughter born at a later age, the two loved me very much. After get off work, my father will help me take a bath with my mother to eliminate the fatigue of the day.In order to see my smiling face, I would make funny faces from time to time to attract my attention, but I always cried so much that the ceiling almost fell off, leaving the two of them at a loss.At this time, my father would rush to the next room to take out the camera and happily take pictures of me crying.Until I was one year old, my father would personally record my growth process with photos one by one.

According to my mother's description, my father was a romantic man when he was young.Looking at my mother who was so tired that I fell asleep because of my crying all day, my father would secretly put the love poems written for her on the table before going to work.When I was young, my father was a "nasty" loving wife and man, using the words of today's young people as a metaphor. My mother's natal family was quite wealthy, and it was the first family in Okcheon, North Chungcheong Province, to own a car.Grandpa's career was quite prosperous, and my mother was called "Miss Xiaodong" since she was a child.My mother originally wanted to go to university, but because my grandfather held conservative views on women's education at the time, he opposed her going to university, and finally graduated from Peihua Girls' High School and worked as a teacher at the school for a short time.Until the marriage, the mother and grandmother were in charge of the life of the big family and assisted the grandfather in his career.

Just when people around me began to worry about my mother’s late marriage, one day my uncle who worked in the intelligence agency actively recommended my father to my grandmother: “He is my senior at Daegu Normal University, he is honest and upright, and now he is a major in the army "Although the "June 25" war had just broken out and the family members had taken refuge in Busan, and the situation was chaotic, but for the grandmother, the daughter who was about to get married was even more worrying for her.Later, with the active promotion of my grandmother, the two had a blind date in the rented house in Yeongdo.My mother said she had a premonition when she first saw her visiting father.Later, in an interview with a certain media, my mother described her impression of her father at that time: "At that time, his back with his military boots off looked very reliable. Although a person's appearance can deceive people, but the back cannot deceive people. I have seen it several times. After the interview, I am more convinced that my intuition is correct, he is a simple and trustworthy affectionate man."

The mother fell in love with the father at first sight, but the grandfather was not very satisfied with the father and did not want to marry his precious daughter to a poor soldier. Despite the strong opposition of the grandfather, the mother insisted on marrying the father. After marriage, my father has always been grateful to my mother for being willing to believe that I didn't even have a house.Mother often told Jin Ling and me stories about their youth.She said that although she is married to a soldier with a low salary, she is happy even if she lives in a monthly rented house.Especially the story of the day when the mother went to the father's dormitory is even more romantic and touching.

In January 1951, shortly after the marriage, the Chinese army attacked Seoul again, and people began to seek refuge in the south again. The situation was very urgent, but my mother risked her life to visit her father in order to see her father.At that time, my father's army was stationed in Jeongseon, and my mother made a detour to the garrison to avoid areas where the opposing army was haunted.Through the messenger, my father had already learned that my mother was coming the day before.He tried his best to suppress his excitement and greeted his mother with a calm expression.When I entered my father's dormitory that night, my mother was very surprised to see the clean quilt cover and pillow case folded in the room.Because she was living in a small house vacated by residents who had taken refuge, she thought that the bedding would not be complete, but she did not expect that there was a set of clean quilts.The mother suppressed the shyness in her heart and asked cautiously: "Who made the quilt so carefully?"

Father only showed a shy smile and didn't answer, but that smile seemed to admit that he did it. "In the case of war preparations, your father must not be able to ask someone to make the quilt, but he must not want to let the wife who came to him in spite of danger to cover the dirty quilt. Just think that he spent the whole night, using that unskilled I will feel very comforted by the appearance of mending the holes in the quilt with advanced technology." Mother said, a gentle smile appeared on the corner of her mouth. "As the wife of a poor soldier, the material life is very difficult, but with your father's caring care, I am not wronged at all. When Jinhui and Jinling are looking for a marriage partner, the first condition is to find a reliable man If two people can get along with each other with sincerity, that is the greatest happiness."

When my sister and I asked about the encounter between my mother and my father, she recalled the situation at that time and told us that choosing a partner should not be measured by money or appearance, but should be based on trust and trust. "The actual conditions are easy to change. As long as the two people trust each other, no matter how big the difficulty is, they will be able to overcome it." This is also the life my mother chose. My mother had a small box that was always on top of the wardrobe, and it contained letters from her father, and the number of letters they sent back and forth was enough to exceed the capacity of one box.It happened to be the time of war when the two got married, so they couldn't go on their honeymoon.After the wedding ceremony, my father had to go back to the military camp, but he was always thinking about his mother who was alone in the distance, so he often asked the signal soldier who went to Daegu to hand over the letter to my mother.Whenever a letter arrived, Aunt Yixiu would jokingly say, "Oh, it's a love letter again!" Mother would defend her father and say, "This is a considerate and manly letter."

When the battle was favorable for the coalition forces, my father was promoted from lieutenant colonel to senior colonel and stayed with the army in Gangneung.It was the second time that my mother visited my father. I passed through Daegu, Pohang, Yeongdeok, Uljin, Samcheok, Mukho and Gangneung. It was such a long and arduous journey to see my father. One can imagine how eager and anticipating my mother was at that time. ... I remember my father once said that the week when his mother lived in Jiangling was the happiest moment in his life. The two often walked along the coast of Gyeongpodae where the spring breeze blows, and the father would pick up shells and give them to the mother, and would hold her hand tightly from time to time.My mother was very moved at the time, thinking: "It turns out that he also has such a gentle side."

Not long after returning to Daegu from Gangneung, my father sent me a letter containing a poem: with me My mother said that whenever she read this poem, she would think of the sweet and happy memories of the early days of the wedding.When we were young, my mother also recited this poem in front of us. At that time, Jinling's eyes were particularly shining, and it could be seen that she was completely immersed in her mother's love story. When I was studying in France, my father often wrote to me, and the letter would describe the recent situation of my family in detail.My father's letters are as beautiful as prose, and I was looking forward to my father's letter every day at that time.

He expressed his love for his family more often in pictures, poems or letters than in words.Although he looks calm and serious on the outside, his father is actually a very romantic person in his heart. He also paints portraits of his mother to give to his mother or expresses his heart by writing poems. He is a very gentle and considerate man.

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