Growing up,I remember my father as a silent,serious man—not the sort of person around whom one could laugh.As a teenager arriving in America,knowing nothing,I wanted a father who could explain the human journey.In college,when friends called home for advice,I would sink into deep depression for what I did not have.
Today,at twenty-seven,I have come to rediscover them in ways that my teenage mind would not allow—as adults and as friends with their own faults and weaknesses.
One night after my move back home,I overheard my father on the telephone.There was some trouble.Later,Dad shared the problem with me.Apparently my legal training had earned me some privileges in his eyes.I talked through the problem with Dad,analyzing the purposes of the people involved and offering several negotiation strategies(策略).He listened patiently before finally admitting,“I can’t think like that.I am a simple man.”
Dad is a brilliant scientist who can deconstruct the building blocks of nature.Yet human nature is a mystery to him.That night I realized that he was simply not skilled at dealing with people,much less the trouble of a conflicted teenager.It’s not in his nature to understand human desires.
And so,there it was—it was no one’s fault that my father held no interest in human lives while I placed great importance in them.We are at times born more sensitive,wide-eyed,and dreamy than our parents and become more curious and idealistic than them.Dad perhaps never expected me for a child.And I,who knew Dad as an intelligent man,had never understood that his intelligence did not cover all of my feelings.
It has saved me years of questioning and confusion.I now see my parents as people who have other relationships than just Father and Mother.I now overlook their many faults and weaknesses,which once annoyed me.
I now know my parents as friends:people who ask me for advice; people who need my support and understanding.And I’ve come to see my past clearer.