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When I face this mention “of an unknown father”, I am brought back to memories which are sweet and heavy at the same time. I had been raised by my grand-parents without knowing who my parents were. It was countryside and we were quite isolated so that this situation never bothered me, until my second year at primary school…
Suddenly, I had a mother, along with two little brothers and a little sister and most of all they were accompanied by a “father”. Is it because blood ties are so strong that I and my brothers and sister became very close in no time? Why then did my relationship with my mother look more like the one between a sister and her little brother? Maybe because our age difference was not that big and also because she couldn’t prevent herself from feeling guilty towards me, so she couldn’t accept me as her son. As for the man who was called “dad” by my brothers and sister, he was still a stranger to me.
Then there was a day when he and my mother had an argument. He took his bicycle and asked me if I wanted to go for a ride with him. At this time, the idea to go have some fun was enough to convince me, and the both of us went to the park which surrounds Chengching Lake close to Kaoshiung. He remained silent and gloomy all the way along. When we arrived to the Zhong-xing tower in the park, he started to tell me with a very sad voice that he was alone when he arrived in Taiwan, he met my mother in Taipei and they got married at the city hall. He had never heard of my existence and couldn’t accept it when he knew about it. But now in his heart he loved me, he just couldn’t find the way to express himself. He also talked about the place where he came from, his family, his pain of being parted from them, also the problem of the age difference between him and my mother, the misunderstandings with his step family… He had no one to talk to, except to me.
On our way back, I sat behind him, my arms around his waist, my heart was warm again. Finally, I also had a father, he just couldn’t tell it to me. I had the feeling of having grown up all of a sudden. The dearest impression left by my father is the image of us two sitting on Zhong-xing tower: it is a warm and beautiful recollection that I will never forget.
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