My father has always reminded me of his talent.

When the first man, Armstrong landed the moon in 1969, there were a lot of people in the village who came to my house and watched it. I will never forget at this historical moment. My father was a handyman. He could magically make useless things   useful. He like to photograph. He won the award with my younger baby brother’s picture in a contest. And also he got the first secondhand video camera from a market in our neighborhood. He could fix anything like radios, watches, electrical products, and he even could sew clothes like my mom. He was usually hammering away at a problem, and somtime she even forgot to eat.

“Hey! Look the way she walks, just like her father!”An aunt had always talked about me. He planned to visit us. It was his dreams to come to the United States and fix my TV, but during the process of the trip plan, he learned he had cancers. Six month after the surgery, he died in 1985. Before he died, he had prepared his pictures for his seven children. Now this picture is hung on the wall of my home.

My younger brother had mailed some letters from Taiwan without any word inside there except his picture on the top of envelop. He said that where the letter goes, and where father was. He would always be with us.

譯自菲菲<塵封往事> 

On the Day of the Typhoon

It was a serious storm, the wind roaring by our wooden house, shaking, and pounding,leaving a big hole in the roof of the bedroom. The rain seeped into the room. Once in a while, like playing a joke on us, the heavenly god teased us, the sun poking his head into the room. Crouching under the room column, my mother held me very tightly. I squirmed, frightened.

Watching the roof almost fall down, my father, carrying the hammer, nails, a bunch of iron wire, and a sheet of aluminum, fought against “the stepmother wind”. Climbing to the roof, he tied the board with iron wire. And then firmly hammered nails to cover the hole and temporarily shelter the room.

My father, a man of few words, tried to fix the roof. He was fighting in the hard rain, enduring the bliss wind and the hot sun for several hours. His whole body was soaking in the rain, and later frying in the hot sun. After fixing the roof, he was almost out of breath. His asthma made him sound like a cow. He then slowly climbed down, wailing from the roof. And went inside the room.

One hand held me and another hand took the tools from my father’s hand, my mother found many blisters rising from the swollen burnt on his back and shoulders.

My father seemed like a hero.because he kept our home safe that night, but his back pain kept him lying on the bed all day.

After feeding me, my mother put me back to the bamboo cradle. Turning her head in tears, she tenderly sponged the blood and spread the medicinal ointment on his wounded shoulder.

Gnashing his teeth from his wound, he howled out. I’ve never forgotten that the moment in my little head. I knew when I grew up, I could take even a little pain because I understood that small wound couldn’t compare to my father’s.

詩靈感來自 <大手牽小手>