The Barriers to Love

By Ya Shalong

The Barriers to Love

By Ya Shalong

Once when I was chatting with a friend over drinks, he talked about the scene of his father lying on his deathbed. He told me that he wished his father would say to him, “I’m sorry for what I did when you were 20.” then he would reply to him by saying, “But I still love you, dad.” Unfortunately, this dialogue never happened. The last thing he asked his father was if he had taken his medications. I didn’t quite understand it at that time, so I said to him, “Since your father was dying, why bother asking for an apology from him?” He said he didn’t know either.

Not until a long time later did I understand how he felt. He isn’t a narrow-minded person—he just wanted to let go of the past via that conversation, so that his father’s image would be perfect again in his heart. Although the father was probably sorry for what he did, he found it hard to apologize. Although the son loved his father, he was simply too shy to say it. Being reticent doesn’t really matter,admittedly, but it will leave you with a troubled mind for the rest of your life.

Some say Chinese people like to bury their love deep in their heart, and perhaps it is true. But, reticence will usually generate pain and a sense of estrangement. Love needs to be expressed in words, suffering needs to be alleviated by words, and mistakes also need to be remedied through words. Someone who has never embraced his dad in childhood will find it hard to do so when his dad grows old.You might say, we don’t need to embrace others to express love, and words are also superfluous if you really love someone—but that’s wrong. We need to embrace our loved ones, and we always do. In our life, misunderstandings may be unavoidable, but we can always try to make them less painful.

(From City Financial News, March 22,2017.Translation:Zhu Yaguang)

有次，我和一個朋友喝酒，他也許是喝多了，跟我說起他父親臨終時的情景。他說自己最希望父親對他說一句“你20歲那年的事情，我做錯了，對不起”。他也最希望自己能在聽到這句話后，說聲：“那我還是愛你。”但是，這段對話未說過。他跟父親說的最后一段話是問父親藥吃了沒有。我當時不理解，對他說：“老人家都已經要走了，何必還要他去向你道歉呢？”他說自己也不知道。

直到很久以后，我才明白他的心理。他不是小心眼，他想通過對話卸掉那段往事，讓父親在自己心中重新變得圓滿。父親說不出道歉的話，雖然他也許是抱歉的。兒子也說不出愛你的話，雖然他真的是愛父親的。當然，說不說也許沒有什么關系，只不過是給回憶留下一個永遠的傷疤。

有人說中國人的愛是一種更深沉的愛。也許是，但這種深沉里往往潛藏著隔膜與痛苦。很多愛，需要語言來表達；很多痛苦，需要語言來消除；很多錯誤，也需要語言來矯正。很多小時候不會擁抱爸爸的兒子，等爸爸老了依然不知道該怎么擁抱他。我們會說，愛不需要擁抱，愛也不需要說出口。這話不對。愛需要擁抱，從來都需要。我們注定會衰老，我們也許注定會產生隔膜，但我們還是可以讓隔膜不那么痛苦。◆

（摘自《城市金融報》2017年3月22日）

愛與隔膜

文/押沙龍