Father:

Now I feel that you are getting older every day, your hair is white, you are stumbling, and sometimes you are willful like a child. You walk slowly around the house with crutches every day, bask in the sun on the balcony and recall the past. Mo Yan once said that he was willing to give up everything now and go back to the past. Would you like to go back in time?

If life can be played back like a movie, I would like to play back to the past and go back to our small yard in the 1970s and 1980s. Do you still remember the yard next to the railway in Shanshan Railway Station?

At that time, you and my mother were still alive, and we children were all around you, talking and laughing. There is also a beloved big brother. Although material life is scarce, we are all very happy. When I first moved into the yard, there was nothing but two earthen houses. You and my mother opened a vegetable field in the yard. Since then, you have been working along the line, and your mother takes care of flowers and vines in the small yard, raising chickens and growing vegetables. We go to school, go to school, have fun, and live a slow life in which soul and body are integrated. That vegetable field earned a lot of sweat from my family, but it also gave us rich returns. Grapes, vegetables and flowers are planted in the field. Under the grape trellis, there are not only clusters of candied grapes, but also deep memories of childhood.

How much we were looking forward to the weekend at that time, because you were coming back from the airline. In the afternoon, we children stood at the crossroads and looked around to see if there was a train coming. Whether it is a bus or a van, as long as you are in the car, we will refuel. You got off the bus. We'll pick up your coat here and move your canvas bag there. Walking all the way, twittering all the way, like a group of cheerful birds, and like a team returning home in triumph.

We can't wait to see your equipment when we get home. If there are cans, biscuits or sweets, the supply truck has been here. But we are most happy that there will be comic books or picture books in your bag, so you must lend them to us. I think it is more attractive than canned food and biscuits. Of course, there are thick books and chess books, but I can't read or understand them. But I admire you very much and often boast to my friends: "My father is great and can read books as thick as bricks."

I can't remember when I became attached to reading. Maybe I have become more literate, maybe Shanshan has a small bookstore. You bought a big, thick book to go home and subscribed to newspapers and magazines. Look, I'll follow. I was so attracted by the wonderful plot in the book that I forgot to eat and sleep. Reading has gradually become one of my great hobbies. My fourth sister likes graffiti, and she draws all the illustrations in the textbook. Buy her a sketch album when you come back from a business trip. She is so happy that she can't draw it every day, and that yard has become a place for us to dance and write.

Every year from April to the end of autumn, it is the season when the yard is fragrant and honey is hanging, and the evening is a happy time at home. In Shanshan, although the spring breeze is soft, there are no trees on the streets. People in this area like to create happiness without trees. They like to find other people with flowers. You and your mother grow flowers very well, especially there are many varieties of Chinese roses, so some people come to our house to see flowers and some people take pictures with cameras. They all praised our small courtyard, which has become beautiful under your care, with flowers, trees, grapes and stone tables and benches. Although these plants were watered by their families, it was worthwhile to pay for them at that moment. My mother is very proud. She often gives the embossing to others, and also shows the paintings drawn by Fourth Sister to others. The small courtyard has not only the fragrance of flowers, but also the fragrance of books and ink. Our family often began to pick vegetables and fruits together and explore the fancy of cooking together. The passing time became slow and warm.

I have always regarded that yard as a paradise, and the outside world is noisy. As long as you enter the yard, your heart will be quiet. Shanshan's environment is hard and the climate is dry, but there are flowers, birds, grass and insects in the yard, apricot blossoms and spring rain in the book and cool and moist spring water in my heart ... The title of the book and the world in the yard are often mixed with me. I also tried to learn from Jia Baoyu, make some rouge with rose petals, and collect some snow water to make tea like wonderful jade, but all failed in the end. Every time I dye my nails with impatiens, it's a success. The charm of literature and flowers makes people want to stop. When reading, imagine what role they want to be in the book; When I don't read it, I wonder if the people in the book will make friends with me. That magnificent and elegant poem, in my heart, tossed and turned, overlapping and lingering. ...

Father, I should thank that era, so that we don't have to have endless cram schools like children now. At that time, the pressure pressed the pause button, and the fatigue had already been lifted. We just did what we liked, and I should also thank you for giving us a small yard and a paradise. In the morning light, twilight, sunshine and moonlight, flowers are in the shade on the wall and in the skirts. I can listen to the birds' whispers quietly, record the conversations of flowers, and silently recite the good words and sentences in the book. Although reading novels made my eyesight decline and I didn't become the writer I wanted to be as a teenager, I still miss the days when I was rich and honey.

However, many years later, the small courtyard is gone, and the past is destined to become a memory. I still remember in the small courtyard, you often said that you didn't want your children to be rich, but only wanted them to be safe and healthy. Each has his own work, do a good job in a down-to-earth manner and support himself. Now, your children, as you expected, are either rich or expensive, but they are working hard in ordinary posts.

But we still have dreams. My dream is: I hope to have a small yard with poems, paintings, good dreams and my closest relatives and favorite people. Although good poems and dreams are hard to find, I hope I am the lucky one, and I wish you, my father, good dreams every night and dreams back to Xiangyuan. ...