Have you ever thought about it this way: For a happy person, "Clannad" is full of real pain. For one unfortunate person, "Clannad" is again full of fairy-tale delusions. But what if these two kinds of people are ourselves at the same time?
Think of the happy (unfortunate) us in the parallel world, and we may be able to discover the true meaning of this animation. It provides us all with a shadow that is both familiar and unfamiliar, and it is because of the light that we can walk with our shadow. The shadow itself has no weight, but we give it a heavy meaning. Happy people often forget the heavy, unfortunate people want to lose the heavy, and "Clannad" teaches us how to really face the heavy.
Life is an interweaving of reality and fairy tales. That's why we call it "The Book of Life".
Life is bound to encounter all kinds of things, but when the right time comes, it will return to us like the tides, carrying all kinds of harvests, and it has the broad gentleness like the sea. - "Clannad"
1. We started climbing this long, long ramp together…
That's a story in another world. The story takes place in a remote town.
In this small town linked by love, there are two young people working hard for their dreams. They used to be extremely happy because they had a lovely daughter on the way to pursue their dreams. The daughter waited for them to return from their busy work every day. They thought such days would never end, but a heavy snow took away their naive fantasies.
Daughter fell ill. However, they had to leave their children at home alone because of their respective jobs. They thought that if they gave her medicine, everything would be able to survive, but the heavy snow outside the window still drifted silently until it covered her weak body.
——On that day, as usual, my daughter was waiting for their return at the door with her feverish body.
The almost desperate father picked up his daughter in the snow and tried every means to wake her up. On the verge of collapse, he prayed to a green space in the town and finally heard the call of a miracle. He couldn't explain the "lights" that flickered in green, but his daughter opened her eyes. The resurrected life becomes the gift of these many "lights".
*
"Dad, does our world have these 'lights' too?"
My daughter interrupted me and turned her head to look at me. I thought that the light was in her clear eyes at that time, but for some reason I shook my head with a smile and couldn't answer her clearly.
The daughter looked serious and asked, "If I have this disease too, will Dad cure me?"
I was speechless for a moment.
After a while, I stroked my daughter's face, and the warmth in my palm gave me the courage to answer:
"Dad will stay by your side until you get better."
"Will mom come back by then?"
I held back the sudden burst of tears, smiled and nodded, "Of course. But Mommy wants you to stay healthy."
Daughter's eyes flickered with anticipation, and the window became more and more quiet, and I continued to tell stories from afar.
*
Since then, the couple has sealed their dreams and chose a career that no one is good at in order to stay with their children all the time. Many years later, the little girl grew up and entered a local high school. She is an introverted and silent girl, not good at taking the initiative to communicate with others, so she is lonely. The girl repeated her grades due to illness in her third year of high school. When the spring of the new semester came late, she stood alone on the long ramp in front of the school gate.
"Do you like this school? I like it very, very much... But all of this can't last forever, whether it's happiness or joy, all... It can't last forever, even so, you will still like it here ?"
She asked someone in her heart softly. The breeze blew through the cherry trees on both sides of the ramp, and the cherry blossoms scattered all over the place. Behind her stood a teenager who also doubted this kind of life, but he interrupted the girl's thoughts with such a firm tone:
"Wouldn't it be enough to find it? - Wouldn't it be enough to find more happiness and joy?"
Because of this encounter, their world is no longer bleak. They will say goodbye to their past lives and welcome a new life that is theirs, that is, they begin to color their lives. If there are infinite possibilities in the future, waiting for us to reveal them one by one, this is the first choice they made.
Boys and girls start to climb this long, long ramp together...
*
The sound of her daughter's slow and even breathing flowed through the night. I gently covered her with the quilt and turned off the bedside light. After leaving my daughter's bedroom, I sighed. The daughter was always asking about her mother and wanted to wait until she was a few years older to tell her, but she seemed to have noticed something. Would she feel better if it was implied in the form of a story?
I stood alone in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The moonlight poured silently from the glass onto the floor, and I was alone between pure white and shadow, reluctant to turn on the light in that bedroom.
I didn't sleep that night.
2. How far can we go if everyone is alone?
The next day, I took my daughter to school, and she asked me to continue the story of last night on the way. I asked her why she liked the story and she said:
"Didn't the girl in the story live because of the 'light'? But she's still so lonely. Will the boy be her friend? I want to keep hearing the happy ending for the girl."
"Why do you think the ending is happy?"
"Because there is 'light'."
"Do you think our world also has this kind of 'light'?" I asked her this time.
My daughter looked at me with firm eyes, "There must be. Even if it can't be seen, it's in our hearts."
I took her little hand and walked down the ramp leading to the school. Her words healed me again, and I agreed with her. But I actually want to say, I can see the light in your eyes.
*
I told my daughter the story later: The boy accompanied the girl to gradually adapt to the new environment and encouraged her to pursue her dreams. The girl's dream was to rebuild the school's drama department, but the recruitment poster she had just gathered up the courage to put up was torn up because she didn't get permission from the student council. When the girl was at a low point, the boy kept trying to find a way for the girl, and introduced her to many good friends. Everyone worked hard to rebuild the drama department.
Later, everyone tried to get the drama department to pass the certification of the student union, and the girls' friends also joined in to prepare for the next cultural festival performance. With everyone's company, the girl spent a warm and unforgettable time, and gradually became no longer lonely, and felt the warmth of family and friendship.
The girl has prepared a one-person play for the cultural festival, which is about a fantasy world. It is not easy to tell this story clearly before going to school, when my daughter suddenly asked me:
"What is a fantasy world?"
I couldn't answer her, so I had to let her imagine, "Everyone has their own wishes, and many wishes come together to become a new world. It coexists with the real world we live in."
"Is there a 'light' in that world?" The daughter was obsessed with this question.
At this time, we have reached the school gate. I sent my daughter here and promised to talk about it when I came to pick her up in the afternoon. My daughter said goodbye to me as usual, and disappeared into a group of students.
*
The company had an urgent task that afternoon, and it was past dinner time. This time, my boss didn't allow me to ask for leave, so I had to ask my daughter's class teacher to take care of her for a while, staring anxiously at the clock on the wall. When I hurried to school to pick up my daughter, I saw her sitting quietly in the corner of the office, not saying a word.
I thought she was upset because I was late, so I tried to make her happy on the way back, and even offered to take her to KFC tonight—even though the doctor advised her to eat less fried food.
After walking for a while, my daughter carefully told me her thoughts. It turned out that a girl named Xiaohan was transferred to their class today. As soon as school was over, she took out a large bag of biscuits from her schoolbag and distributed them to everyone. She said that she wanted to give everyone the cookies they made by themselves. Her wish is to come to her house tonight for her brother's birthday party. Some people felt that she was too sudden, so they didn't accept her gift - of course, most people declined Xiaohan's invitation on the grounds that the meal was already cooked at home today, including her daughter.
Few of the classmates accepted the biscuits, but when they accompanied Xiaohan to the school gate, they were all brought home by their parents for various reasons. While those uncles and aunts explained to Xiaohan, they all invited Xiaohan to their house for dinner next time without exception. These are what Xiaohan told her daughter. When Xiaohan looked back at the empty classroom in disappointment, she found the last person left in the classroom, my daughter. The daughter recounted how she ran back to the classroom and invited her to her house again, but she finally refused Xiaohan's request in order to wait for me.
She felt a little guilty about it. After listening to her thoughts, I feel more guilty than she is. My daughter has no friends in the class because of her introverted personality. Today, I made her lose another chance. I told her that in this case, you can actually ask the teacher to call me, and you can make your own decision.
My daughter suddenly stopped, held my hand tightly and said, "I know Dad is working overtime for me. If I go to someone else's birthday party, you will be sad alone. I don't want Dad to be sad."
It pains me that my daughter is not mature for her age. She did not accept Xiaohan's invitation, but she accepted the other party's biscuits. Then she handed me the small unopened box of cookies.
"Xiaoxi, do you know how your thoughts are conveyed in that world?"
I told her the story of Fengzi.
3. If possible, please be friends with Fengzi.
Fengzi is the friend of the boy and the girl in the story, and a girl who is afraid of life. She was involved in a car accident during her freshman year of high school and remained unconscious in the hospital. Fuzi's older sister is the girl's art teacher, but to take care of Fuzi, she resigned from school and postponed her wedding with the person she loves. But Fengzi's soul returned to school with the help of the fantasy world because she missed her sister, in order to achieve the happiness of her beloved sister.
"Is it because of 'light'?" my daughter interrupted.
"Maybe." I nodded. "Imagination world can help someone who has love to fulfill her wish."
"It's great!" The daughter was rarely excited.
Fengzi carved a wooden starfish in the empty classroom of the school alone, and wanted to give it to everyone in the school as a gift, and then invited everyone to attend her sister's wedding. But her strength alone is too weak, and she faces a lot of confusion and ridicule. Later, she met boys and girls, and her persistence moved them. They were not only willing to help her realize her wish, but also became good friends with her, accompany her to make and distribute starfish, and Fengzi was no longer alone. Boys and girls invite Fengzi's sister back to school for the open house and encourage her to face life positively and seize her own happiness. My sister was finally moved and decided to hold her own wedding at the school, a place full of memories. However, when the two asked Fengzi to meet her sister, her sister did not see her.
"Because Fengzi is a ghost, my sister can only see Fengzi in the hospital," said her daughter.
"Yes. In fact, when Fengzi's wish was realized step by step, her existence was gradually forgotten."
Forgetting starts with people who are farther away and gradually reaches Fengzi's friends. The boy and the girl spent the last happy time with Fengzi, but the grateful Fengzi pretended to be indifferent and secretly helped them come together. The kind Fengzi hopes that everyone can be happy, but she herself is going to disappear. When Fengzi's wish was fulfilled, almost no one remembered why there was a wooden starfish in his hand, but almost all of them came to the wedding scene at the same time.
Finally, the boy who remembered the existence of Fengzi blesses the newlyweds with tears in his eyes, hoping that they will be happy for the girl who used to run silently for the arrival of this day. Fengzi's sister saw her sister who was blessing her in a dream, and heard this voice: "Happy wedding, sister. Please be happy forever and ever."
She felt her sister's wish. Everyone forgot the girl who sent starfish everywhere, but like her, she still remembered the figure who kept running around the campus. That is the proof left by another Fengzi in this world, it will always be engraved in people's hearts and will carry everyone's expectations until the day when the real Fengzi wakes up.
*
After listening, the daughter lowered her head and was silent for a long time. The last ray of sunset on the horizon was about to disappear, I couldn't see her expression clearly, but I knew she was thinking about Xiaohan. I opened the biscuit box in my hand and handed it to her. After shesitating for a while, she took one out.
Taking advantage of this moment, I asked my daughter, "What do you think Fengzi's intention is?"
The daughter didn't seem to hear my question, and seemed to hear it again. She didn't answer me, just took a cookie from the cookie box, tiptoed it to my mouth, and said softly:
"This is delicious. Dad, let's try one too."
I bent down to take the cookie. At this time, I saw my daughter take out the mobile phone she just received, click on her class group, and I don't know what text I am editing. After the message was sent, there were many responses very quickly. My daughter replied with a little excitement, and the street lights on both sides suddenly turned on. At that moment, I could see clearly the answer that my daughter wanted to give me.
After everything was discussed, my daughter finally raised her head and asked me with anticipation in her eyes:
"Dad, can I..."
"Okay, Dad will send you there now." Before my daughter could finish speaking, I held her hand, "When you get there, pass on my blessings to Xiaohan and her brother by the way. Dad will pick you up when the time comes. you."
"Then will you be sad alone?"
"Dad is not alone."
After that, I went to the community to pick her up. My daughter told me that Xiaohan was very moved today and gave everyone a lot of cookies she made - but she gave the first box of cookies she made last night to her daughter alone. I was surprised to hear this.
The daughter said she told Xiaohan the story of Fengzi and became her first friend in the class. When Xiaohan gave her the biscuits, the first thing she said was: "If you can, please be friends with Xiaohan."
At this time, my daughter handed the biscuits to me again.
4. The world is beautiful, even with sadness and tears.
After my daughter made her friend, she was much more cheerful than before. She still follows the story, but every day I tell her the story of my boy and girl friends before going to bed. My daughter asked me, why can girls get out of the shadow of loneliness? I didn't answer her directly, but I said that family and friends gave her the courage to persevere, and that encouragement went both ways. Every character in the story has their own wishes hidden in their hearts, and the mutual support of generations of wishes makes up this prosperous town. Girls are the symbol of this town.
I asked my daughter, "Do you remember the cherry blossom ramp where girls and boys meet?"
The daughter nodded.
"If you were the girl in the story, how would you feel if the cherry blossom trees on this ramp disappeared one day?"
"Don't!" The daughter quickly shook her head, "This is too cruel to her."
"What if those trees had to be cut down because of the town's development plan?"
My daughter answered me firmly: "Then I will do my best to stop this plan."
I smiled and stroked my daughter's hair to show my support for her idea. I said maybe there are very few people in this world who want to think like you, but in that story someone did. I told the story of Tomoyo to my daughter. Her daughter, who seemed to admire the character, said she saw the shadow of her new friend in Tomoyo, who was struggling to protect Sakura Ramp to maintain "the bond between the family." She also said that Tomoyo, who became the student council president, not only saved the cherry blossom tree, but also contributed to the smooth establishment of the girl's drama department, which is really good.
This is the daughter's first use of the word "bond".
I also told my daughter about Kotomi, the Fujibayashi sisters, Yuji Ning, the Chunhara brothers and sisters, and Miss Misaki. They are all friends of boys and girls, and they all protect each other warmly. Although there are joys and sorrows in each person's story, each person reaps tender memories and feels the important things in their own lives. This tenderness may be the common bond of all the loved ones in the story.
*
My daughter likes the name "Qinmei" very much, I told her the origin of the name:
"This world is made up of many little harps that are invisible to the eyes. Each of them plays a unique note. When all the notes fit together, they form a long tune, so the world is so beautiful. ."
This is how Kotomi's father, a genius scientist, feels when facing his daughter. I think, when I faced Xiaoxi, although I couldn't write such poetic words, my inner emotions might be the same. Before telling this story, if my daughter had asked me, "Is the world beautiful?" I might have hesitated to prepare the answer to her next question - but now I'd say yes without a second thought, because my daughter asked me this The question itself has confirmed the beauty of the world.
I look forward to it like a dark night watching the dawn. Since that desperate accident, I have hardly recalled those beautiful moments. They are like quicksand, constantly draining the reality of this world, leading me to some false end. I don't want to put this kind of nothingness into my daughter's world, because it's like glass, it will shatter when touched. But I don't remember when I started to meet these stories in my dreams. Each of them was so kind and brought me back to my daughter from the endless darkness and took me to a brand new world.
"Dad." My daughter shook her little hand and pulled me back from my thoughts, "Did you hear my question?"
"Ah, sorry, just ask again."
"What I want to ask is, since she is called this name, is the song she played nice?"
I was stunned for a while, and I was still looking forward to it a few seconds ago, and now I have fallen into the innocent eyes of my daughter in this way, and I don't know how to answer her.
"Ah... maybe." I replied with a wry smile.
There was a stagnation in the air for a few seconds.
I couldn't help it, and added: "I thought you would ask me a question like 'Is the world beautiful'..."
"So the world is beautiful?" My daughter echoed me perfunctorily.
"Well, of course." I got a certain level of satisfaction inside me.
"Then Dad, buy me a piano." My daughter hugged my arm like a kitten, "I also want to learn to play the piano, and try to play beautiful songs like Qinmei."
An ominous premonition flashed through my mind. Just as I was thinking about how to answer, my daughter's voice continued to ring in my ears:
"In this way, I can bring the beauty of this world to my father."
Ah, thank you, Xiaoxi. Dad has heard.
5. Our dream is that you can realize your dream.
The girl prepared a lot for the performance of the cultural festival, but when everyone thought it was going well, something unexpected happened. On the eve of the official performance, the girl stumbled upon photos of her parents' happiness when they were pursuing their dreams. Her mother used to be a middle school teacher, and her father was keen on acting - but they both gave up on themselves in order to accompany her. dream. Thinking that this performance was exchanged by her parents sacrificing their dreams, the huge sense of guilt made the girl fall into endless self-blame, unable to face the audience under the stage. She shed painful tears in public.
There was a rustling of discussions from the audience.
At this moment, the girl's father suddenly rushed into the venue and shouted to the stage, "Go and realize your dream—"
"Are you a fool?" He stretched out his fist and slammed into the wall, "A child's dream is a parent's dream, and it should be realized by you! Our dream is that you can realize it. We didn't give up our dreams. , but make your dreams our dreams—that's parents, that's family! We've been looking forward to this day since that day. If you give up here, we'll be lost—"
Excited shouts resounded throughout the venue. The girl's mother, the boy, and her friends all pinned their deep regrets and hopes on the girl. The girl gained strength again.
"Let me take you there. This town, the place where wishes come true..."
That show about the fantasy world finally ended without a hitch. The girl gives the story an end that hints at hope: the girl and the robot decide to leave that world for a more lively and prosperous place. After a long journey, they finally sang a song. In the setting sun, she told the boy alone about the ending.
"Singing?" My daughter looked at me suspiciously.
"Well, I sang a song." I hummed the melody I remembered to my daughter.
The daughter also learned to hum.
"What's the name of this song?" my daughter asked me.
"One of its names is "The Big Dumpling Family"."
"Does it have another name?"
"Um."
I tie my daughter's shoelaces and open the door. In the first ray of sunshine in the morning, I held her little hand.
*
On the way to send my daughter to school, I continued to tell stories of boys and girls. The boy finally helped the girl realize her dream, and gradually understood her own mind. On the second day of the cultural festival, he confessed to the girl, and the two officially started dating.
The daughter lowered her head subconsciously, her eyes seemed a little erratic. But soon, she lowered her eyes sadly.
The girl fell ill again with a high fever. The illness lasted too long this time, and the girl could not meet the school's required days of attendance, so she needed to repeat the third grade. While the boy and many of her friends have graduated, she is back in solitude. Even so, the boy stayed with her day in and day out, until she got better, and cared about her life at school. In order to earn money alone to support the family, the boy found a hard job. After seeking the consent of the girl's parents, the boy and girl rented a cheap apartment, and the two lived a simple but happy life.
"Didn't the boy also lose hope in life?"
"After the baptism of time, some things will slowly change. For the sake of the person he loves, the boy will also grow into a real teenager."
Daughter nodded in understanding, and we had reached the ramp at the entrance of the school.
"I really hope they can stay like this forever," my daughter said to me when she was parting.
I nodded with a slight smile and watched her walk into the campus.
How should the next story be told? I am afraid of the direction of the story and the memories of reality. Between the real and the unreal, I am gradually being torn apart. I can't bear to imagine how I would face the plot if it happened in reality. Fate always fooled me when there was no warning, I fled to the dream, but looked forward to the reality of the dream.
*
Two hours later, I received a call from my daughter's head teacher. On the phone, I heard that nightmarish place full of memories I wanted to forget.
Everything came unexpectedly, and my world began to shatter.
6. The meaning of life is still in the family and loved ones.
I don't remember how I put down the phone and rushed out of the office. I only remember that I couldn't get a taxi downstairs for a long time. I was like a person abandoned by the world, running on the road to the hospital. It's already spring, and all I can see are gray fragments. I don't care how terrified pedestrians on the road dodge the speeding monster, like seeing a wild beast escape from a cage in a zoo. I'm just afraid that the hunting net of the god of death is getting closer and closer behind.
When I arrived at the hospital sweating profusely, my daughter's new homeroom teacher hurried down the steps and almost fell to the ground in a panic. With a crying voice, she told me that my daughter was still in the emergency room for rescue. While leading me over, she incoherently recounted how her daughter suddenly fainted in class in the morning.
I would love to hear every word she said, but my mind just went blank.
When I ran to the door of the emergency room with the red light on, the painful memory flooded into my eyes again. The accident six years ago determined the collapse of countless happiness - when I stood helplessly in front of this empty door holding Xiaoxi, who didn't know anything, what I thought was six years later. today. I can't imagine what it was like when my wife suddenly fainted, but that terrible thought sketched its outline for today's arrival, until she suddenly woke up from her dusty memory.
If fate is doomed like this, what else can I do?
I was slumped on the bench outside the rescue room, almost desperately covering my face and wanting to cry. I think of Xiaoxi who was still listening to my story quietly that morning, the light that hit her face when she was tying her shoelaces, the look in her eyes that she had been looking forward to for a long time for a happy ending, I thought of all this . All this flickered in red light and shadow, obscuring my vision.
A voice repeatedly told me that I was a failed son and a failed husband.
Am I going to be a failed father now?
Father-in-law and mother-in-law were also on my daughter's emergency contact list, so I wasn't surprised when they hurried over. I didn't even have the strength to stand up and talk to them. Everything was explained to them by their daughter's head teacher. The two old people seemed to be mentally prepared on the way, and their reaction after listening to the passage was much more restrained than mine. They have gone through decades of ups and downs hand in hand. They lost the daughter they once loved so much, and today they are the little granddaughter they love. Even if they don't say it, they must be extremely disappointed in me.
My father-in-law handed me a cigarette, and I waved my hand with a wry smile. He sat next to me and said nothing, just lit a cigarette and smoked silently. I was ashamed to look over, even though I knew it was useless, I was still thinking about the words of apology in my heart.
"You've worked hard all these years," he said suddenly.
At least for this moment, I unconsciously put myself into that story. I couldn't help laughing at myself, what face can I have on a par with the protagonist? When my mother was raped, I didn't have the courage to stand in front of that man's iron fist, and when I first met my wife under the cherry tree on campus, I also lost the chance to intervene in her scarred past— —Even when she was about to leave, I was still lost on the high-speed train that was flying back, crying with the childishness of a 30-year-old man in the quiet carriage.
In front of a man who loves her even more than me, how can I bear this sentence?
"The meaning of life is still with the family and loved ones." Seeing that I didn't answer, my father-in-law continued to light a cigarette, "After Xiao Zhi left, her mother and I both thought we had no need to live anymore. But you are different, you still have Xiaoxi."
"But Xiaoxi, I couldn't take good care of her either..." I raised my head, my voice trembling in a low voice.
"It's impossible that something will come true just by praying. However, as long as you work hard to find a way and try your best to the last moment, the outcome may not be so bad. - You have worked hard."
"But why..." I choked and couldn't speak.
Father-in-law put out the cigarette and said sternly: "You have to remember that you are not alone, we are a family. What can you gain by living alone? People and people are connected, and love is also connected, even if people Not here, but we never feel alone - that's what it means to be alive."
I didn't dare to lower myself, because I could already feel the grief that my father-in-law was trying to suppress in his voice. I am ashamed of my own desperation. I once thought, will my wife feel lonely after going to another world? I've been looking for an answer to this question, and now I've found that my wife may never have left this world.
I left her.
7. I don't know when, has the mission been completed?
The doctor grabbed Xiaoxi from the god of death. Somehow, when I heard the news, I instead thanked fate from the bottom of my heart—even though it clearly took away another beloved of mine. The tired doctor said that her daughter's disease is hereditary, and it deteriorated very quickly from the onset to the first. It is a miracle that she can be rescued this time. Considering the current medical conditions and the patient's ability to bear, it can only be treated conservatively in the future. As for whether it will recur again, it is still unknown.
it is as expected. I, who thanked my fate a second ago, started to hate my fate again.
My father-in-law patted me on the shoulder, saying that I would think about it later. The daughter was transferred to the intensive care unit, and the family members were temporarily unable to visit. And my mother-in-law finally realized the tears on her cheeks and asked me for a tissue.
I took a few days off from the company until my daughter was transferred from the intensive care unit to the general ward. By this time she had regained some energy and could talk to me. This was my daughter's first hospital stay and she could tell she didn't like it here, but every time I came in, she always tried to greet me with a smile.
"I don't know why, but I always feel that it's not the first time I've come here." The daughter said with a smile.
I was stunned for a while, but I quickly abandoned my wild thoughts and comforted: "You had a few fevers when you were young, and you have come to this hospital for infusions. But this is your first time being hospitalized."
"Okay." My daughter accepted my explanation. "Dad, please sit down for a while. Grandpa and grandma just returned."
After I sat down, my daughter moved her body around pretending to be mysterious, leaned over to me and asked half-jokingly, "Dad must have been in a hurry when I passed out?"
"Of course, you almost scared your dad away."
Daughter Puchi smiled, "Actually, it's not a big deal. I just didn't want to go to class, so I threw myself on the table and went to sleep, but everyone thought I passed out. Later in the ambulance, I think everyone was very worried. I was embarrassed to open my eyes. Who knew that I was pushed into a very bright room, and they used various instruments on me, but I couldn't sleep..."
After listening to my daughter's "confession", I rubbed her head with a smile and helped her back to her original position. Seeing my smile, my daughter pestered me to continue the story from the last time. I was hesitant not to talk about it at first, but my daughter's interest is so high that I know that if I don't talk about it, I won't be able to go out.
How to say it?
*
In order to support the family, the teenager worked hard every day, saving little by little. The girl continued to go to school and prepared delicious meals for the boy in the evening. The two shared the day at the dinner table. Although the work of young people is hard, but with the patient guidance of seniors, and the care of bosses and colleagues, they progress very quickly. Later he was admired and got a good promotion opportunity. But at this moment, something happened to the boy's house.
The daughter was a little nervous.
Didn't I say that teenagers were disappointed with life before? He used to be a depraved teenager, and a big reason why he became like this was his feud with his father. The boy's mother was gone when he was very young. He was supposed to live with his father, but he couldn't get used to his father who was drinking alcohol every day to drown his sorrows and gradually become decadent, so he and his father had many quarrels. The teenager likes to play basketball very much, but he was injured in a fight with his father once, so he couldn't lift his right hand, so he had to give up his only hobby. The relationship between the two has deteriorated since then.
"Is that really the case?" my daughter asked me, frowning.
I nodded. The daughter doubted: "This person has lost his mother since he was a child, so how did he grow up? Just like me, my mother is not by my side. If there is no father, I will not grow up alone. If it were me, I would There's no way to fight with Dad."
"But they are boys..."
"Boys don't work either," said the daughter stubbornly.
I didn't know how to answer her for a moment, so I continued. The conflict between the teenager and his father became a scar in his heart that he dared not touch, so he moved out of the house later and lived in the girl's house. Later, he rented a house by himself, and he also had the motivation to fight. It seemed that everything in his life was gradually escaping from his father's shadow - but at this moment, the boy's father was arrested for selling contraband, and he was implicated after the news spread. As a teenager, he lost a valuable promotion opportunity. The father once again affected the boy's life.
The daughter seemed to be very distressed. I was about to talk about the latter, but I didn't expect that she was distressed by another person:
"Why does that uncle sell prohibited items?"
"This dad doesn't know much either. It shouldn't be explained in the story."
"Why did he come this far?" The daughter asked sadly: "Why can't he work well? He must have suffered a lot when he raised his son. Will he lose his job because of this? - Because In order to take care of me, my father has also asked for leave many times from the work unit. - Will he borrow a lot of money? My son must leave him alone at home, he must be lonely. If he has no money and no job, Besides doing something illegal, what else can you do?"
What my daughter said shocked me. She lowered her head in embarrassment, thinking that she said something she shouldn't have said. Of course I was moved by the fact that my daughter cared about her father, but before I got to the end, my daughter had already guessed those hidden parts, which made me even more sad. ——She could have avoided thinking that way.
Resisting the urge to burst into tears, I turned my head and was silent for a few seconds.
But at this time, there was a low knock on the door outside the ward.
I looked up, and the glass at the door flashed half of a person's body, but quickly disappeared from sight again.
8. The really important things are always very simple.
Did you knock on the wrong door? I think. But my daughter insisted on letting me take a look.
After I went out, there was no one outside. After looking around for a while at the door, I saw a hunched back hurriedly leaving the stairs. I chased after him and stopped the gray-haired old man, but he didn't seem to hear.
I had to rush over and grab his shoulder, trying to stop him. But when I walked up to him, I could hardly believe my eyes.
Is this that person? Is he so old?
I haven't seen him for over ten years since he suddenly disappeared, and I don't want to see him at all. I thought time could erase all memories, but I didn't expect that when I met again, I could recognize him at a glance. I am laughing at myself having this ridiculous ability.
"Is that you?" I asked.
"No no, you've identified the wrong person." He hurriedly wanted to leave, but his identity was revealed as soon as he spoke.
I stopped him at the top of the stairs and asked him how he got here, not what he'd been up to all these years. Compared with his bad things, I am more worried about how he knows about my daughter, and what kind of ill will he is to Xiaoxi. Those nights where weeping and cracking sounds were intertwined, as if someone had deliberately frozen in extreme cold for 20 years, like a time bomb, always wanting to be resurrected at some point.
I am afraid of these unforgettable memories.
After hesitating for a long time, he finally said: "Since you didn't pick up the child that day, I haven't seen her again. I went to the school to ask around, and finally heard about it, so I wanted to come over and take a peek. A glance."
A burst of anger went straight to my head. Has he been following me and Xiaoxi? He disappeared for so long, now he knew he had a granddaughter? Come to see her? Who knows what your heart is! When your mother was sent to the hospital by you, she disappeared after you said she disappeared. Later, she hoped that you would not come back until she was mentally ill. What are you doing when you come back? Are you drunk and even spare your own granddaughter?
I really want to be in the stairs, even if he is my father in the sense of blood.
Endless drinking and beatings disqualified him as a husband and father. There is no reason to erase the evil he has committed, he has completely destroyed a woman who deeply loves him. He was the only person she had loved since middle school, and the fragmented past between them was permanently embedded in her mother's heart, becoming the reason why he would not want to divorce him no matter how many fists he threw. Every time he wakes up, he kneels in front of his mother and promises never to do it again. He squandered this inexhaustible love until he sent her to intensive care and lost the poor job altogether.
But he told me he quit drinking. Since the first day he disappeared, he has not touched a drop of alcohol.
He doesn't know how to apologize to me, and I don't need his apology. But he said he knew all these years, just in another capacity. When he first disappeared, he did make up his mind and went to Beijing alone, ready to start a new career - but he failed miserably. It's an MLM organization. His little investment was swept away by his most trusted partner, and he wrote a suicide note in the rental house.
Before he despaired, he sneaked into the nursing home and saw his insane mother, who was in the yard turning page after page of a photo album full of them, mumbling words. He finally gave up seeking death.
He had to buy a fake ID and use another name to pull goods, deliver meals, and wash dishes. He even bought several tutorial books for adults to take self-study undergraduate exams. He didn't know why he lived like this, but he lived till now. His debts have not been paid yet, but he is glad that he has changed his identity so that I and Xiaoxi will not be implicated. During the time when I was rushing to school every day after school, he was always in the group of parents who came to pick up their children, and I didn't even find him once.
He said he had never hit anyone since that day, except once he saw three boys teasing Xiaoxi, two of whom he knocked out four teeth and the other one broke his leg.
My daughter never mentioned this to me.
I didn't really want to accept his rhetoric, but his astonishing rate of aging gave me a shameful pity. Maybe the daughter is not criticizing the protagonist in the story, but criticizing me. She may never know the life of her poor, hateful grandpa, but she knows I must have a father, just as she has me.
This is her logic. What she thinks is important is always very simple.
I don't have the luck of the boy in the story, even though he thought it was bad luck to have a father like that. His father loved his family in his own way, and all I felt was hurt and betrayal. Will you forgive a person who hurt you when he comes back to you with a completely opposite face?
I will not. But I finally allowed him to visit my daughter in an appropriate way after she recovered.
People are always so contradictory, especially in front of their loved ones.
9. A small opportunity can make unknown changes in the future.
When I returned to the ward, my daughter asked me why I had been out for so long. I lied and said that I met an acquaintance I hadn't seen for a long time, so I chatted for a while, but my daughter didn't ask any further questions. She cast her eyes out the window. There were just a few cherry trees planted in the open space in front of the building. New shoots were just emerging from the branches, which was the signal of spring.
"When you feel better, Dad will take you out for a walk."
The daughter gave an obedient "um", looked outside and said with emotion: "The boy and girl in the story met in such a season."
"Yes, it's school day."
"Did Mom and Dad meet in such a scene?" My daughter asked me suddenly.
I was silent, not answering my daughter's question immediately, and my eyes stopped on the branch swaying in the wind. My wife and I also met under the cherry tree, but it was college years. I was not able to participate in her past life. She left her purest thoughts in the restless middle school stage. Compared with her first love, which had countless rays of light, I was more like a passerby.
Yes, I'm just a passerby. I love Xiaozhi, but some flowers only bloom on the shore.
"Dad met Mom by chance under the cherry blossom tree on campus, but Dad didn't have the luck of the boy in the story. Dad was a member of the school's photography club at the time, and he met Mom on the way to the event. She was wearing a white dress at that time and was Sitting under the tree and waiting for someone. There were some naughty children behind the cherry tree, they shook the petals off the tree, and the cherry blossoms rained on Mom, but she still sat quietly. What was Dad? Without thinking, I raised my camera to capture this moment, and then it was seen by your mother."
"So mom came to talk?" my daughter asked me expectantly.
"Yes, but it's not what you think." I said with a wry smile: "Mom came to talk to me and wanted me to delete this photo. Because she was afraid that his boyfriend would be unhappy. Dad was a little embarrassed at the time, but After seeing it, my mother said, I can exchange a contact information first and let me send it to her and then delete it - because she likes this photo very much. So father and mother know each other. "
The daughter held back her smile and said, "How can you still know each other like this. Dad, you are miserable enough."
Yes. Most of the beautiful bridges in the story do not exist in reality, but we will feel very real. We look forward to something else, even knowing it's delusional. For example, I would look forward to meeting my wife in junior high school and getting ahead of that person. Or hope that I didn't go through that path, and that moment was photographed by someone she liked.
But in this world none of that happens. She waited for that person under the cherry tree for a day. And I turned my head and forgot about that appointment until a week later—she had broken up with that person by then, and the reason for the breakup was never told to me. Later I often saw her sitting alone under that cherry tree until spring passed.
*
My daughter doesn't quite understand my explanation. She thought that when Mom and Dad could finally come together and become a family, we should be happy. I told her that there is too little happiness in this world. We often lose happiness in delusions, but delusions are not wrong. So she asked me:
"Dad used to say that mom wasn't here, so can I imagine where she is?"
I nodded. The daughter bit her finger and thought for a long time.
"Mom is actually 'here', but we don't see it. Just like I always believe that there are those invisible 'lights' in our world, even if we can't see it, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just believe in this, I believe that no matter what the circumstances, Dad is as happy as the boy."
I haven't gotten to the saddest part of the story, but my daughter seems to have guessed something. Rather, she "delusional" the direction of the story herself. The boy proposed to the girl, and the two supported each other to go on, and then the girl graduated. The two had a lovely daughter, and the family of three lived happily ever after. That's how the story ends, isn't it?
I was about to go on like this.
Never thought that her daughter would erase her name in this way. I realized then, am I telling her the story, or is she leading me here? I couldn't fall into the trap of self-anaesthesia, even though I knew it was my daughter's good intentions. When we unload the weight in a delusional way, we turn away from the people we love.
Delusion itself is not wrong, but how many people have used it as an excuse to escape the truth? We gain one kind of happiness in "delusions" and lose another kind of happiness in reality. When we take such an adventure, we should know the cost of "unloading the heavy". I distinctly remember that this story was not a story of unloading the weight. Rather, it reveals to us the power of carrying a heavy burden. ——Daughter is carrying this heavy burden for me.
I decided to wait for my daughter to get better and tell her the whole story seriously.
10. The only place to cry is in the toilet and in Dad's arms.
After the young man lost the chance to be promoted, under the comfort of the young girl, the two decided to support each other and go on. The boy summons the courage to propose to the girl, and wins the girl's parents in a baseball duel. The boy and the girl finally became husband and wife. The girl also went out to find a job, and she became stronger than ever. But the town is changing day by day.
The teenage girl is pregnant, which is good news for the whole family. She plans to give birth to the baby at home and let the baby's father take its first bath. But when the child was about to be born, the girl fell ill again.
The girl's father told the boy the secret that his daughter was rescued by the town. The forest full of vitality has now been torn down by the machine, and a hospital has been built on the spot. He worries about the connection between his daughter and the fate of the town. Finally, on a snowy day, the girl was born prematurely. Her weak body was repeatedly tortured by severe pain, and she lost consciousness several times. The teenager stayed nervously by the girl's side until the birth of their daughter. For this moment, the girl tried her best, but in the end she closed her eyes forever in the boy's arms.
My daughter tried to interrupt me several times, but I never gave her a chance. When she heard this, she finally showed a sad expression and kept a distressed silence. What is she thinking? Will she think of her mother? Or did you expect the story to end up like this and couldn't bear to listen to it any longer?
The death of the young girl was a huge blow to the teenager. He returned to a depraved life and pushed his daughter to be raised by his father-in-law and mother-in-law. Five years later, when he saw his daughter again, he didn't know how to get along with her. The father-in-law and mother-in-law created opportunities for them to get along alone, and the ice between the two began to be broken gradually. Later, the teenager took his daughter on a trip and bought her the first gift, which was a robot toy. Daughter cherishes it very much.
"Robot!" The daughter seemed to realize something and exclaimed.
But when the boy took his daughter to play in the rapeseed flower field, the daughter accidentally lost the toy and looked around in frustration. The teenager met his grandmother here, and the grandmother told him the hardships of his father raising him alone. Only then did he really wake up to his responsibility. The young man finally decided to face his daughter alone, and the daughter put down her patience for the lack of fatherly love all these years, and threw herself into her father's arms and burst into tears.
I always pay attention to my daughter's expression. Tears rolled in her eyes, but she just wouldn't let them flow. I wanted to do something, even pull out a tissue, and then I found that I couldn't do anything.
*
The teenager regards his daughter as the existence he protects all his life, and starts a warm life with her. He also reconciled with his father and introduced new friends to his daughter—by the way, it was Feng Zi after waking up, and the two often played together. But the good times didn't last long. One day, the daughter suddenly fainted because of a fever. The symptoms were exactly the same as her mother's.
-Why do I say this here? I was suddenly silent.
My daughter was waiting for me to continue, but I couldn't bear to speak anyway. Even though I was ready to tell her everything, I really didn't want to make it a prophecy that came true. Even though Xiaoxi has already guessed the ending, if I don't talk about it, the protagonist and I will still have happiness. Even if we know in our hearts that this happiness may pass away like the wind at any time, we always want to block our ears and do not want to hear the inner struggle.
We resist in vain.
"So he lost his daughter in the end, right?" The daughter asked proactively.
I don't know how to answer. After a long time, I raised my head and asked her, "What do you want the ending to be?"
"I hope the ending is happy."
"Even if it's gotten to this point?"
"Even if it was a sad story, it wasn't his fault. If I were that daughter, I would definitely tell my dad, thank you and mom for showing me this beautiful world, please don't feel bad for me."
For some reason, I am reminded of those nights when I cried alone. If I could go back to that time, I must tell myself to cherish every moment of the present, because the world is always showing you its beauty, and we are constantly running towards the darkness. We don't have to hate the ruthlessness of fate, because time should be allocated to those who need us to cherish it as soon as possible. When they leave us, we are also cherished by them. We don't have time to curse the world, we at least cherish ourselves—because those who love us need an eternal sustenance.
Besides, Xiaoxi is still by my side.
*
I use the simplest language to tell my daughter's departure in the story and her fusion with the fantasy world. Teenagers bring happiness to people in reality, and these happiness make the town no longer decline, reconnect with love, and gain new vitality. After the teenagers gathered all the "light" they needed, a miracle finally happened: the girl who once lost her life due to the decay of the town avoided an accident during childbirth, and their daughter also came into this world, and the family could finally be happy reunion.
I asked my daughter, "Do you think this ending was unexpected to you?"
The daughter shook her head and told me, "I always believed in this ending."
"Do you think this kind of miracle will happen in our world?"
"If Dad believes that there is an invisible 'light' in this world," my daughter replied in a very firm tone, "then don't expect such a miracle."
"why?"
"Because 'light' makes us happy."
The endless shadow before my eyes began to split in two. The morning sun shone through the gap in the curtains onto the daughter's hospital bed, casting a bright ribbon. Are the cherry blossoms blooming outside the window? Maybe spring has arrived? I got up and opened the curtains, and at the moment when countless golden warm currents merged with me, I suddenly realized that I was passing through a hopeless nothingness.
On the edge of the dream, a voice is calling me back to where I really belong.
11. Even if separated, the bond still exists, this is the so-called family.
"Are you awake?"
I rubbed my sun-stinged eyes and struggled to straighten up from where I was lying. This familiar and unfamiliar voice echoed in my ears, and I always felt that I had experienced a long and long separation from this voice. When I opened my eyes, my wife's face was reflected in front of me. For some reason, tears suddenly flowed out of his eyes unstoppable.
The wife was obviously terrified, and hurriedly pulled a tissue from her bag.
Am I dreaming, or am I waking up from a dream? Maybe this question has become less important to me now. I looked around and it was in my daughter's ward, and it seemed like we had just taken her from home to the hospital.
I ignored the tissue handed by my wife and rushed to my daughter absentmindedly. My daughter was fast asleep, and my wife quickly pulled me back and made a "shush" gesture.
The memory of the dream gradually recovered, and my heart was thumping violently.
My wife took me outside the ward and told me in a low voice, "The doctor has just checked her, everything is normal, and the fever has subsided. Xiaoxi has common pneumonia, and the doctor said that she will be fine after two days in the hospital."
I listened in disbelief, and it took me a long time to come back to my senses.
"Then when you were sent to the hospital six years ago, was it also because of this pneumonia?"
My wife looked at me puzzled, "What are you talking about? Didn't I faint because I worked overtime for several days in a row and couldn't hold it anymore? And you sent me to the hospital. I just lost a little bit. Glucose, have you forgotten?"
"Oh." I was embarrassed by my insanity. Now, I am exactly the person I dreamed of, with my wife and daughter by my side, and I live in a happy world.
So why do I have such a desperate dream?
I hope to find some clues from my spiritual world in the dream, but in the short few minutes, it is in vain. All I know is that in my dreams I am desperately looking for something, and that is something that must be reached through the abyss of despair. I suddenly missed the story that made me cry countless times.
"By the way, did Xiaoxi ask you before where did her name come from?" I asked my wife.
The wife shook her head, indicating that it was too early to explain to her daughter. We made an agreement before that when Xiaoxi was a few years older, we would accompany her to review the animation as our "explanation" of her name. But I think, perhaps before today, I myself have not fully grasped the true meaning of that name.
I saw through the window that my daughter was awake, and I hurried back to the room with my wife.
While yawning, the daughter said that she seemed to have had a long dream, but she couldn't remember the specific content of the dream. She only remembered that she was also lying on the hospital bed, with only her father beside her. At this time, she glanced at her wife and continued to say that the father in the dream was not happy, but she tried every means to make me happy, so she asked me to tell a story with a happy ending. At the end of the dream, Dad found what he wanted, and she herself somehow conveyed what she wanted to say to a significant other.
The child's mother listened quietly, but judging from her expression, she probably didn't understand.
I didn't say a word, I just took my wife in my arms and looked at my daughter with a smile.
*
The day my daughter was discharged from the hospital happened to be her birthday, and we asked her what she wished for. The daughter thought for a while, but finally said that her wish was to realize her own wish in the dream. Well, what did you wish in the dream? The daughter explained very abstractly:
"I remember that in the dream I used a strange way to convey something to me, but unfortunately I had forgotten what she wanted to tell me. But I wanted to write her a reply in the same way. Although I Knowing that I didn't do anything, but I always had the feeling that I had fulfilled her wish."
The wife asked, "What kind of way is that?"
The daughter stretched out her hand and pointed to the cherry blossom tree outside the window, "First of all, we will go to the place where Mom and Dad met for the first time, and then let a balloon fly there."
As soon as my daughter's voice fell, my wife and I looked at each other: Did we tell her about the past?
But the daughter seems to be very sure of this.
Could it be that her father-in-law and mother-in-law told her? Or did I accidentally hear my wife when I was talking to her one day? Thinking of this, I suddenly realized that I hadn't talked about that scene with my wife, and we all seemed to be trying to avoid mentioning it. It's still amazing to think about. So I mustered up the courage to tell my daughter what happened back then, just to make her happy.
Unexpectedly, my wife was not happy after hearing it. She confronted me in front of her daughter:
"Do you think I never really loved you because you weren't my first love?"
Ah, how to say it? My face suddenly turned red to the base of my neck. -Why should I bring this up to death?
"Of course not. You listen to my explanation first..."
Halfway through the words, there were two knocks at the door. I rushed over like a life-saving straw.
12. No matter what happens in the future, please don't regret meeting me.
I opened the door quickly, and I was greeted by my daughter's best friend Xiaohan and her mother, as well as a hydrogen balloon? !
"Let's see Xiaoxi and bring her some biscuits that she likes to eat." Xiaohan's mother explained to me with a smile: "On the way here, I happened to see a stall selling balloons, and Xiaohan found this The shape of the balloon, I have to buy it as a birthday present for Xiaoxi, and said that Xiaoxi will definitely like it."
Xiaohan hid behind her mother with a look of dissatisfaction on her face, as if to say: You will find out later!
I invited the guests inside and conveyed their intentions to my wife and daughter. When my wife saw the balloon in Xiaohan's hand, she couldn't help but smile at me. Xiaohan walked to the bed and solemnly handed over the gift in her hand to Xiaoxi.
"Thank you for the stars, I like them very much." Xiaoxi replied sweetly.
A strange expression appeared on Xiaohan's face. I quickly saved the field and said, "Thi
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