Chapter 10 watch my son grow up

i love my son.  My son has been wearing glasses since he was a child. People who visit my house for the first time always ask: "Are you nearsighted? How much?" Always give the following answer: "It's not myopia, it's hyperopia, it's hard to correct!" In fact, to be more precise, it should be due to the problem of esotropia in the left eye. Due to esotropia, hyperopia has been corrected for a long time and has little effect, and now it has become amblyopia.I have always said that if I can’t correct it, I will go to Tongren Hospital for surgery, but that is only for cosmetic purposes. The left eye can no longer be slightly deviated, but it can’t change the amblyopia, and it can even cause near blindness, so I haven’t gone there yet. surgery.

Why is the son's left eye slanted?Is it congenital or acquired?If it is congenital, before he was two years old, we only thought his pair of dark pupils were as beautiful as grape beads, and we never felt that his left eye was slightly turned inward.If you talk about the day after tomorrow, you can recall that when you were two years old and just knew how to call someone, a reckless young man in the neighborhood—he was not married at the time, but he liked dolls very much—carried him to his house to play, and then suddenly heard My son cried loudly, and then he came to my house with his son in his arms and apologized again and again. When he couldn't hold him steady, his son fell to the dining table at his house, hitting his brow bone, but fortunately he didn't hurt his eyes. For displeasure.But he didn't do it on purpose, and it seemed that the left eyebrow was raised, red and swollen, and the eyes were still black and white. I just thought it was "lucky among misfortunes", so I applied some ointment, and it gradually calmed down.But after an unknown period of time, I suddenly felt that my son's left eyeball was slanting inwardly! Is that mang man, the neighbor who has no malicious intentions, the culprit of the problem with his son's left eye? But after careful examination by the doctor in the hospital, he found I also said that it was difficult to determine whether it was caused by a fall or bump the day after tomorrow, and that some congenital defects did not become apparent until the children got older—so, later I said to my wife: "You should also think about it this way. It's all the genetic code lurking in my sperm that caused this result." She didn't take it seriously, but I got a lot of psychological satisfaction from this self-characterization. I am satisfied: after all, my son is the continuation of my individual life. I hope that all the advantages in my life will be passed on to him. I also admit that I must have dominant or recessive weaknesses and even disadvantages, which will continue to his individual life. Among them, I frankly accept my full responsibility for his innate qualities.At the same time, I believe that just as I never blamed my parents for inheriting certain ills to me, my son will not blame me for not making him more perfect and have a competitive advantage in this world . 

I never thought my son was super cute or smart, but no matter what, he was mine—my son. Because I have strong fatherly love, I often hold him in my arms, besides kissing his firm face, I can’t stop stroking his hair, his arms and hands, legs and feet, back and belly ...  More than ten years later, my son has grown into a big man, and one of his neighbors at the same age has also grown into a big man. When the young man came to play in my new residence one day, he said to me: "Liu Uncle, I really envy him—" He said and pointed to his son: "You have always touched him since you were a child. When I touch my arms gently, I feel itchy in my heart. Later, when I see this situation again, my skin all becomes irritated!" Ah, what he said is "skin hunger and thirst disease", his biological mother died young After the biological father married his stepwife, both of them treated him very badly, especially after the stepmother gave birth to a younger brother, he became a "superfluous role".

Of course, it has not yet developed to the extent of beating, scolding or abuse regardless of food and clothing, but the father's love and mother's love that never gave him gentle caresses made him recall it when he became an adult, and when he compared it, he felt deeply saddened! Loves her child, especially a father, who is as happy as a mother to hold him, hold him in his arms, kiss his face, touch his bare skin and hair, tickle his armpit and tease him Laughter...is a very, very important responsibility and pleasure in life! In a sense, feeding children, teaching them knowledge, admonishing them, driving them to study and work...are not enough to reflect the parents' respect for them. parent-child love.Touch them gently, give them a gentle caress, this should be the most important nourishing agent for their body and mind in childhood and even adolescence, and it should also be one of the greatest joys that you and I can enjoy as new parents. one!

Love for young children is connected with the mentality of loving all newborn and young lives and things.  Even for ferocious beasts like ligers, wolves, and leopards, their cubs only make us feel lively and vivid, and never produce a sense of fear.  Even ugly beasts like rhinoceros and hippopotamuses, as long as they are reduced to immature beasts, or even reduced to imitation dolls, we will eliminate the sense of ugliness and give birth to appreciation.  Even the baby crocodile has a kind of coquettishness, and the little snake that has just crawled out of the cracked eggshell has a kind of pitiful simplicity. Not to mention young children, no matter what skin color they are, black, white or yellow, and no matter what their eyebrows and eyes are, as long as they show a childish mood, we can't help but love them and want to touch them Hair, tugging at their little hands, even kissing their faces... 

Not being able to love young lives is at least a morbid psychology.The course of life has its two ends. Traditionally, the Chinese nation has always advocated respecting the elderly, which contains the essence that is worth carrying forward forever. However, in our cultural tradition, there are indeed "twenty-four filial piety" that have been widely spread, and there have been praises for "Guo Ju". Buried children" that weird approach to the text.Both ends of life deserve special attention.Love for the young and respect for the old should be the driving axis of the vitality of a prosperous and healthy nation that complement each other. However, stories like "Guo Jubuier" artificially oppose the new life and the old life.The result of the opposition is to affirm the incomparably lofty value of the old life, and advocate the complete sacrifice of the fresh new life to complete the limited delay of the old life. As early as more than half a century ago, the sage Mr. Lu Xun mentioned this At the time of "filial piety", they swore angrily that they would use the darkest curse in the world to curse the cultural mentality of "Guo Jubuier" and other cultural mentalities. That is really the out-and-out dross in traditional culture!

The novelist Zhong Acheng recalled in an article commemorating his father Zhong Dian that when he was 18 years old, his father sat across from him and solemnly said to him: "Acheng, we are friends from now on!" I don’t remember which day and which sentence my father began to regard me as a friend of the same generation, but the life experience of “adult father and son are like brothers” is as strong in me as Zhong Acheng.I remember that during the most chaotic years of the "Cultural Revolution", the military academy where my father taught was fiercely fought, so he had to take his mother to abandon the house and flee to my sister and brother-in-law's house for a temporary stay.I didn't have a family at that time, I just ran from the unit to visit my parents from time to time.One day when only my father and I were alone, my father talked to me about his hazy first love. The kind of continuous pouring and chatting was completely adult,

Like a brother, more like a friend.Decades ago, when my father was a handsome young man, he always walked by the lake to and from school. A house near the lake had a low window.During the day, the shutters covering the windows are lifted upwards, and at night, the shutters are lowered to cover the entire window tightly.After passing by for a long time, I found that in the window where the glass could not be moved during the day, there was a beautiful young girl, with her lips tightly pressed, looking out silently.Ever since my father met her eyes once, he always felt that she was casting melancholy and yearning gazes at him. Later, every time his father passed by that window, he slowed down his pace, and the girl inside the window also He almost pressed his face to the glass.Gradually, the father noticed that every time the girl saw him, a faint, honey-like smile appeared on her face.Once, I even proudly showed my father an embroidered thing... As for my father, every time he approached the low window, he couldn't help his throat getting rough and his heart beating fast... What happened later? Tell me about it in detail, and only explain: Later, I heard that the girl in that family suffered from "daughter's tuberculosis" and passed away not long after.What about the window facing the lake? According to my father’s impression, it was covered with wooden shutters forever, even during the day. I suspect that this is a kind of avoidance in my father’s mind, not the truth.Maybe, my father never walked by that window anymore, but changed his way of walking... 

As a son, how can I comment on my father's hazy first love! However, I am very grateful to my father. Love, to balance his traumatized and skewed soul! Perhaps, from that day on, my father and I became close friends.  Now that my father has passed away many years ago, and my own son is an adult, when I sit next to him, both of us feel that our relationship has entered a new stage-he no longer needs my physical caress, and I don’t. No need for his childish frolic anymore, we started talking... This is a higher level of enjoyment of life.