Dear Jenny,
Your article about jasmine impressed me as one filled with tiny understandings and wisdoms as well as tender love toward your mom. Whether you are sixteen or not, your article just shows that you are rather mature and I believe you are a nice girl. I mean that. :-)
You say that at present you can pay very little back to your mom and sometimes you even think that the blossoming jasmine has done better that what you have. Admittedly we all owe too much to our parents who almost revolve us all the time, but we are just TOO BUSY TO NOTICE. I still remember one remark in the classic work”The Red Mansion”:
“We all long to be God or Goddess, but we are just reluctant to forget our offspring; We have witnessed too many infatuated parents, but who have ever found filial children?” (“世人都晓神仙好，惟有儿孙忘不了； 痴心父母古来多，孝顺儿孙谁见了？”)
I didn’t mean to blame all the children since in that way I would blame all the human beings including me, that is crazy and also impractical. I only want to show how easy it can be for us to ignore our parents while how hard for our parents to ignore us!
I have read some articles that have lectured me again and again that: don’t repent for not showing your deepest love and passion to your beloved parents because you can never afford the time to lose. We live in a fixed circle: when we are young, we just can’t think of paying filialness and love to our parents, perhaps we are too young to understand; then when we have our own children, when we finally have the chance to taste by ourselves what to be one parent really means, we can hardly spare enough time to share with our parents, because we are always stubborn enough to fancy that OUR CHILDREN are more important than THEM--people once called and forever call us CHILDREN, now it is not that we are too young to understand but that we have understood it before we made OUR CHOICE.
THEN THE LAST STAGE COMES.
We have all become old, so old that we at last begin to notice children and have definite interest in them. “Is that what we once looked like when we were that young?” We begin to ask ourselves questions like this once and again. We smile when we watch them; we repent when we don’t; whatever they do, we just want to watch and smile, comfortably or regretfully recollecting those precious golden chips from the stream of memories once we had. Oh, we know our time has gone, we have already put one foot into the threshold of our tomb. Only now have we finally realized how invaluable life is.
Then we begin to learn to retain valuable things as much as we can. We make every effort to recollecting our children, our friends and all the familiar faces once emerged in our mind. If possible, we will spare no effort to getting together with these lives we love and whom we are loved by.
Of course we can’t miss our children because we love them so much, and there is every reason they shall love us too and the love must be as strong as ours! We are so confident!
But only very few of us prove not be let down.
“Why, why don’t they spare a little time to share with me?! I love them so much and they can’t just leave me alone by simply thrusting some cold money into our hands!!”
“Hey, my dear peer, don’t complain any more. Just think about how we treated our parents when we were at our children’s age. Calm down and think it over. And I am sure you will find it all out … …”
We begin to repent, repent for the way we once treated our parents. We never doubt our love to them, but we just HAVE NO TIME!!!
“Oh my God, just come and save me! Why is the situation finally like this!? What wrong have I done?! … …”
Nobody can tell except yourself.
There is no God in this world, the only God lies right in your heart.
Then we at last begin to understand something. Funny, isn’t it? We finally understand but we are too old. Perhaps that is the way we learn things, only that it takes too long time. So we want to tell people what we have understood and hope that they may choose another way. But whom can we tell the understanding to? To young men? Oh no, they are too young to understand; To old men? Old men like me? No necessary since they can all understand.
Well, who can imagine this? I actually can find nobody to talk to?!
Suddenly I think of “Canuck’s Comments” … …
Jenny, sorry I have written so much, but I do believe that you can understand me.
Too confident, right? :-)
Hope you a nice day everyday.
Sincerely yours,
Samuel2002/6/14Hefei Anhui.
