Tribute: In Remembrance of Dad 5

連結 (link): 中文版緬懷李老師 5

2019.06.05 at Oak Glen Preserve, California

In addition to teaching at Beitou Junior High School, dad transferred to Taipei Municipal HuaiSheng Junior High School in 1978 when moving to Taipei. He taught at HuaiSheng until his retirement in 1997, ending his 40-year teaching career. My father also made many friends in HuaiSheng Junior High. These teachers often form groups to travel together inside Taiwan or go abroad during winter and summer school breaks. In addition, after retirement, they would go hiking together every week so their retirement life was fun and exciting. My sister and I were fortunate enough to travel or go hiking with them. We are very grateful to these teachers. My mother has had Parkinson’s disease since 2013, and her movements are slow and sometimes unstable. These teachers would take care of her and give my father a chance to breathe. I have always been awkward in speech and do not know how to express my gratitude. If the teachers of HuaiSheng Junior High read this article, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you. We are fully aware of your love and thoughtfulness toward my parents. We appreciate your kindness greatly.

*Traveling and hiking with Huaisheng Junior High School teachers in recent years*

When it comes to travel, both my parents love to travel. My mom can tell us all the stories about the places they have visited. But on the other hand my dad could only remember a few famous spots and he won’t remember the rest places. But he enjoyed traveling with many friends and family, having fun and taking pictures. He also carefully recorded his itinerary on the calendar, which was detailed and neat at a glance. Dad loved to plan. He was also very good at collecting and organizing information. He loved to use lists or charts to plan things or keep records. Lists and charts also made complex things look simple and clear. After reading his travel log, I realized that they traveled all over the world except Africa and South America. They have their footprints on all other continents. I came to the United States in 1984. I have stayed abroad for many years. In the early days I could only exchange brief greetings on expensive overseas phone calls. If we needed to talk about serious stuff or things in detail, then we communicated through letters. I also encountered many struggles and challenges when I first arrived in the United States so I did not know things happened at home at that time. Seeing their records of traveling around the world and knowing that my father was not very good at describing touring stuff, I am very curious about why my father loved to travel. After chatting with my sister, I guess it is because my father loved my mother. After my mother retired early, she encountered menopause and her hormones were out of balance so she suffered serious depression. People say that travel is a good way of treating depression. Then, my dad took my mom traveling all over the place using the summer or winter school break time. Their happy travels broaden their horizons, and my mom’s depression improved. If there is a chance in the future, I will dig for treasures and organize the information and photos of their travels.

Left: My father’s records of his trip to mainland China in 1990 on a mini calendar. From this sample page of the calendar we can see that he recorded his travel itinerary attentively. Seeing this sample page also reminded me of his cutting and pasting information meticulously for the tasks of student class grouping or arranging math lecture notes.
Middle: Showing some of the places that my parents have traveled around the world (excluding Taiwan and mainland China). I’m afraid I’m missing something, so I use “partially” to describe these spots on the map.
Right: A list of their long trips to various places. You may notice a geometric figure on the right with some number marked on the side, I guess he was planning to do a travel-related art creation (I will write a post about his art creation later). He first listed the time and place of trips which helped him to conceive the idea. Unfortunately I was not aware of his plan so I won’t know what his creation might look like.

In fact, the relationship between my parents is not just one direction. Dad often told us how he admired my mom’s perseverance. Take their trip to Brisbane, Australia from January 23 to 27, 2004 as an example. Dad had always been suffering from stomach ulcers. He might feel sick before the trip. I guessed he planned to go by all means since he had signed up for the trip and did not want to spoil everyone’s fun. So he and mom, plus a daughter and a grandson, went as planned. My sister recalled that my dad walked strangely as they walked out of the plane when they went to Brisbane’s Gold Coast in Australia. Sometimes he walked crookedly but sometimes normally. After eating, he was normal but after a while he appeared sick again. He was pale and about to faint. At that time there were many people who were traveling in the same group and there were many discussions. Some people even said that my dad might have a stroke, which really made my mom and sister scared. In the end, he had waited to go back to Taiwan and be sent to the emergency room at the National Taiwan University Hospital for medical treatment. Only then they found out that my dad had serious stomach bleeding. At that time my sister, who had not yet believed in the Lord, saw my mom knelt down by the bedside and prayed for dad every night. Even before returning to Taiwan, in the airport my mom found a prayer room to pray. Three years (2007) later, my sister, a believer of Christ, realized how important prayers were. I would like to thank God for listening to mom’s prayers, so that Dad can have many happy trips in the rest of his life.