美文-dad

tycoon

The first memory I have of him—of anything, really—is his strength. It was in the late afternoon in a house under construction near ours. The unfinished wood floor had large, terrifying holes whose yawning darkness I knew led to nowhere good. His powerful hands, then age 33, wrapped all the way around my tiny arms, then age 4, and easily swung me up to his shoulders to command all I surveyed.
　　The relationship between a son and his father changes over time. It may grow and flourish in mutual maturity. It may sour in resented dependence or independence. With many children living in single-parent homes today, it may not even exist.
　　But to a little boy right after World War II, a father seemed a god with strange strengths and uncanny powers enabling him to do and know things that no mortal could do or know. Amazing things, like putting a bicycle chain back on, just like that. Or building a hamster cage. Or guiding a jigsaw so it forms the letter F; I learned the alphabets that way in those pre-television days.
　　There were, of course, rules to learn. First came the handshake. None of those fishy little finger grips, but a good firm squeeze accompanied by an equally strong gaze into the other's eyes. “The first thing anyone knows about you is your handshake,”he would say. And we'd practice it each night on his return from work, the serious toddler1) in the battered Cleveland Indians cap running up to the giant father to shake hands again and again until it was firm enough.
　　As time passed, there were other rules to learn. “Always do your best.”“Do it now.”“Never lie!” And most importantly,“You can do whatever you have to do.”
By my teens, he wasn't telling me what to do anymore, which was scary and heady at the same time. He provided perspective, not telling me what was around the great corner of life but letting me know there was a lot more than just today and the next, which I hadn't thought of.
　　Then, a school fact contradicted something he said. Impossible that he could be wrong, but there it was in the book. These accumulated over time, along with personal experiences, to buttress2) my own developing sense of values. And I could tell we had each taken our own, perfectly normal paths.
　　I began to see, too, his blind spots, his prejudices and his weaknesses. I never threw these up at him. He hadn't to me, and, anyway, he seemed to need protection. I stopped asking his advice; the experiences he drew from no longer seemed relevant to the decisions I had to make.
　　He volunteered advice for a while. But then, in more recent years, politics and issues gave way to talk of empty errands and, always, to ailments.
　　From his bed, he showed me the many sores and scars on his misshapen body and all the bottles for medicine. “Sometimes,” he confided,“I would just like to lie down and go to sleep and not wake up.”
　　After much thought and practice (“You can do whatever you have to do”) , one night last winter, I sat down by his bed and remembered for an instant those terrifying dark holes in another house 35 years before. I told my father how much I loved him. I described all the things people were doing for him. But, I said, he kept eating poorly, hiding in his room and violating the doctor's orders. No amount of love could make someone else care about life, I said, it was a two-way street. He wasn't doing his best. The decision was his.
　　He said he knew how hard my words had been to say and how proud he was of me. “I had the best teacher,”I said,“You can do whatever you have to do.”He smiled a little. And we shook hands, firmly, for the last time.
　　Several days later, at about 4 A.M., my mother heard Dad shuffling3) about their dark room.“I have some things I have to do,”he said. He paid a bundle of bills. He composed for my mother a long list of legal and financial what-to-do's“in case of emergency.”And he wrote me a note.
　　Then he walked back to his bed and laid himself down. He went to sleep, naturally. And he did not wake up.
我对他——实际上是对所有事的最初记忆——是他的力量。某个下午的稍晚时候，在我家附近正修建的房子里，未完工的木质地板上有些巨大而可怕的洞，在我看来这些洞绝不会通向什么好地方。爸爸，那时他33岁，用他有力的双手一把抓住我的小胳膊，那时我4岁，然后轻而易举地把我甩到他的肩上，让我看个清楚。
　　父子间的关系是随时间的流逝而变化的。在共同成熟的过程中，它成长并繁荣了起来。但它也会因令人不快的依赖或自主而变质。对今天很多单亲家庭的孩子而言，这种关系甚至可能不存在。
　　但对一个在二战刚过后的时代生活的小男孩而言， 爸爸就像个拥有奇异力量和神秘 能力的神，他无所不能， 无所不知。 那些令人惊异的事儿，如上自行车链条，或造个仓鼠笼子，或教我玩拼图， 拼出个字母“F”来 。 那时电视还未诞生， 我就是用这种方式学字母表的。
　　当然还要学些规矩。首先是握手。不是那种轻轻滑过没感情的手指相碰，而是一种有力的紧握，同时还要以同样有力的目光看着对方的眼睛。爸爸总说：“人们能最先了解你的是通过你的握手。”每晚他下班回家，我们就练习握手。一本正经的小孩，戴着顶破克利夫兰印第安帽子，跌跌撞撞地跑向巨人般的父亲，一次又一次地握手，直到握得足够有力。
　　随着时光流逝，还有其他的规矩要学。比如：“总要尽力而为”，“从现在做起”，“永不撒谎”，还有最重要的：“你能做好任何你该做的”。
　　到我十几岁时，老爸不再叫我做这做那，这让人惊慌同时又让人兴奋。他给我观点，不告诉我在人生的重大转折点上将发生些什么，而让我明白，除了今天和明天，还有很长的路要走，以前我从未考虑过这些。
　　后来，学校教的一个知识与爸爸所说的相矛盾了。我觉得他不可能会错，可书上却是这样写的。这样的事日积月累，再加上我的个人阅历，让我逐渐形成了自己的价值观。可以说我们开始各走各的自认为正确的道路了。
　　我开始发现他对某些事的无知、偏见与他的弱点。我从未在他面前提过这些，他也从没跟我提起，但无论怎样，他看上去需要保护了。我不再向他征求意见；他的那些经验似乎也同我要做出的决定不再相干。
　　有段时间，他自愿给些建议。但后来，特别是近几年，他谈话中的政治与国家大事让位给了空洞的使命，而更多的是疾病。
　　躺在床上，他给我看他那被岁月扭曲了的躯体上的痛处和疤痕，以及所有的药瓶儿。“有时，” 他倾诉着：“我就想躺下睡一觉，永不再醒。”
　　通过反复思索与练习（“你能做到任何你该做的”），去年冬天的一个晚上，坐在爸爸床边，我突然想起35年前另一栋房子里那些可怕的黑洞。我告诉爸爸我有多爱他。我向他描述了人们为他所做的一切。但我告诉他，他一直不怎么吃东西，躲在房间里，不听医生的嘱咐。我说，别人再多的爱也不能代替你自己去热爱生命：这是一条双行道，他没有尽力，其实一切取决于他自己。
　　他说他知道我说出这些话是多么不容易，他是多么为我自豪。“我有最好的老师，”我说，“你能做好你必须去做的事”。他微微一笑，我们随之握手，有力地，最后一次的握手。
　　几天后，大约凌晨四点，母亲听到爸爸拖着脚步在他们漆黑的房间里走来走去。他说：“有些事我必须去做。”他支付了一叠账单，给母亲留了一个长长的条子，列着法律和经济上该做的事，“以防不测”。接着他给我留了封信。
　　之后他走回自己的床，躺下。他安详地睡了，再也没有醒来。