The clumsy translation of love

The desk lamp cast an amber glow on the exercise book. The son eraser rustled, and the tip of the pencil lingered behind the word "Answer" for a long time. I caught a glimpse of the crooked doodle figure on the scratch paper, and suddenly the astringent taste of aged mint candies welled up in my throat - thirty years ago, I did the same, scribbling math problems into comics and whistling with my textbook covering my face when my father took away his exercise books.

At this moment, I crouched down and saw my son's eyelashes casting fine shadows under his eyes, just like the stubborn self in the mirror back then. My memory suddenly rewound. The warmth of my father's palm seeped through my school uniform and into my skin. The scolding of "Concentrate on doing exercises", wrapped in the smell of tobacco, rolled out from the tip of my tongue at this moment. I reached out to touch the dull hair that was curling up at the ends of his hair. He reflexively shrank his neck. This action reminded me of my resistance when my father rubbed my head.

Outside the window, the paulownia leaves rustled, shattering the moonlight. Suddenly, I realized that those conflicts that haven't been diluted by time are merely the waves surging in the same sea in different seasons. The trembling hand of my father holding the ruler back then, and my clenched and then unclenched fist at this moment, are both clumsily conveying the same clumsy love. It is only after we become parents that we come to understand those words of advice that have been preserved by time. Unfortunately, time is always imitating but never repeating.

When my son stuffed the crumpled test paper into his schoolbag, I watched his thin figure and suddenly realized that every father was engaged in a doomed translation, translating their passionate love into a language that their children could understand.