The Day My Father Cried

In Remembrance of My Father Jiaqi Xu

许虹 August 19, 2018

左起：许家齐校友、许虹、汪莹校友

It was said that a daughter is her father’s love from a previous life. I never doubted that.

Since the first time my father held my hand gently in his, I knew in my heart it was true.

My dad Jiaqi Xu(许家齐 外文系1962届）grew up in an outer province and started serving in the air force at a young age. He never got to go to high school but was sent to NK University directly by the air force after years of service.

Dad worked hard in college and had struggled to keep up academically. Unlike my mother who was gifted, outgoing and outspoken, award-winningly talented, and popular, dad was little known on campus and kept to himself most of the time. His laconic temperament had less to do with arrogance, aloofness, or pretense, and more to do with his placid disposition, and his natural sweet innocence.

In her recollection years later, my mother fondly recalled that during her junior year at the NK university, on those gloomy dark winter mornings, she looked out of her dorm window around 5am, and always saw two white dots rolling along a field track. That was my father running with his white gloves on, every morning rain or shine, punctual as a clock.

My mom was impressed and started paying more attention to him. A few years later she left behind dozens of suitors, and married my dad. They remained married for over 40 years till death.

As far as I remember, my parents had always been my best friends. They were also among the kindest and the most decent people I have known, upright, apolitical, and loyal to a fault to their family and friends all their lives. Their love and protection nurtured me and shielded me for almost 2 decades from darkness, scarcity and all the imperfections of this world. As a child I could not have asked for more.

We were never materially rich and yet we were blissfully happy as a family. Mom was the brain and the planner, and dad the muscle and the go-getter. Mom made neat to-do lists. Dad ran around crossing items off the lists, till he accidentally lost a list. J Mom was sophisticated, artistic, and maintained higher standards. Dad and I were simple, the type of people who could easily be bribed with good food!

To make up for mom for his years of absence when he was working overseas in Rome and Vienna in the 80s, dad did almost all the housework upon his return. For years he worked full time for a publishing company, when he took on all the chores at home such as cooking 3 meals for us all, laundries and cleaning, grocery shopping,  tucking me to bed at night and bathing me (till I was 12).

When I was in 12th grade and mom was diagnosed with cancer, dad was over 50. Yet upon his retirement, dad quickly and decisively got himself another full time job as an interpreter with an engineering company, and went on working another 6+ years till he was almost 70 year old.

In those years I never needed a clock in the morning to keep track of time. On a typical week day, I’d hear in my sleep our front door opened and closed carefully around 7:10am, and knew that dad had left for the day for work. 

Soon enough, an executive of the engineering company started to openly praise dad as his model employee.  Dad, in his mid 60s, was the first to show up in the morning. Humble, honest, and quick in action, dad got jobs done without any fanfare or politics.

Back then mom and I never thought much about it. It was not until many years later, after dad’s passing, that mom and I, in an attempt to pacify each other, started to recount all the things dad did and did not do when he was around.  To two persons already drowning in sorrow, it surely had helped a lot.  We ended up crying for dad for hours on end, till exhaustion crept in and nudged us into sleep.

As time went on, I had thought the mourning would stop and the memories would eventually fade. Neither has happened. As I was sitting here writing this on his birthday, I missed dad more than ever.

In my entire recollection related to dad, however, one day stood out. That was one of the few occasions dad shocked me. As far as I know, it was the first and the only time my father cried in his entire life.

On that gloomy chilly October morning two decades ago, dad carried me on his bike to one of the GMAT test sites in the city.

GMAT was given only once every 3 months back then. The entrance fee for GMAT was over 1/3 of my dad’s monthly take-home pay at the time.

Yet it was my parents’ lifelong dream to see me pursue a higher education and a life abroad, away from everything that was going on domestically.

In my last year in college, dad quietly put his plan in action. For a few months in a roll, dad took me to a major public library in the city where I browsed casually while he studied the Peterson’s Guide (on universities in U.S.), and took notes. In time he found a few universities in U.S. for me to apply. Even though the application fees to these universities cost dad almost a full month salary at the time.

While dad was working on this, a cousin of mine was attending a class in the city for GMAT preparation. It was the equivalent of Kaplan GMAT prep classes today in the U.S. but for a fraction of today’s price.

My cousin was beautiful and intelligent, a graduate from an elite university, trapped in an unhappy marriage, and going through an affair that went nowhere. She had trouble showing up for the GMAT class she paid for. So I went to the lectures instead, with a recorder to take notes for her.  I also got to use her text books when she did not need it. And she rarely did.

The bad traffics in the city soon became an issue and I started to skip classes too. My cousin did not seem to mind. Half way through the class, my poor cousin passed away.

That was the first dramatic loss in years in our extended family, and a blow to all of us.

In shock and sadness, I kept those GMAT text books, and made a mental note to make good use of them. In my mind, one way to honor my cousin was to carry on what she was unable to finish herself. I also knew how much time and money dad had put into graduate school applications and how much he wanted me to ace GMAT.

I quitted my full time job as an accountant at a local company, my first job after college. For the next few weeks,  I carried my cousin’s books to a local university, sat among college students in shared study rooms, and practiced the questions in the books with a timer that counted down to second.

Dad acted as if everything was normal. He was more than assured when paying for my test a few months prior.  Once he had made up his mind, he acted with quiet resolve and never looked back.
Yet life threw curveballs.

On the morning of the test, dad and I were stalled in bad traffic. By the time we arrived at the building where the test was administrated, all desks on the first floor were already taken! 

While the test administrators scrambled to find me a desk, the bell rang and the test officially started!  
Grabbing the rail of the stairs leading upstairs, I looked over my shoulder searching for dad among all the parents in the lobby. There he was, standing tense among the large moving crowd, bracing himself for a fall, and anxiously glancing my way, tears in his eyes.

I had never seen him like that before! For a second time froze. I was scared, and intuitively became more keenly aware of the significance of that test and of that day. 

The test administrator found me a desk upstairs swiftly. I felt eerily calm and focused as I started the test. Due to the delay, I skipped a few questions in a verbal session of the test but managed to answer all the questions and to check all the answers in the quantitative sessions.

Coming out of the test room, I overheard other test takers discussing the harder questions in the quantitative section of the test. I instantly knew how they tripped up on those questions. To me everyone would score 100 out of 100 in the quantitative section if not for these questions.

Dad was waiting for me in the lobby. I told him I did not do as well in the verbal section but I did ok in the quantitative section. He saw the hope in my eyes and seemed instantly relieved.

A month later test scores came out. My verbal score was 74 percentile, my quantitative score 99 percentile, and my overall score 97 percentile.  That put me about 20 points above Harvard’s average GMAT score for class admitted that year, and at Stanford’s admission average.

What made me feel the best was not the scores. It was a 90% tuition scholarship from a major university that enabled me to get a graduate education without breaking my parents’ budget. I did have to work two jobs on campus to support myself and to live through two long snowy icy winters in Ohio without a car. Yet nothing made me happier than knowing I saved my parents a small fortune.

Almost two decades later, I have no trouble recalling the expression on my father’s face that day and the tears in his eyes. It was that face and those tears that have pushed me forward in life in the years that ensued, and to constantly outgrow myself.

Of all and everything I have inherited from my parents, I have had (about 1/10th of ) my mom’s brains and creativity, (1/10th of) my dad’s discipline and resolve. I’d like to think it is a pretty powerful concoction and the mix came out pretty good. To top it off, I owe them for all the precious memories to keep.

Still that day was among the most special of all.  Neither dad nor I ever told mom in detail what happened that day at the test site. It became our secret. Memories of that day would bring a big smile to dad and me instantly and anytime. And we knew why.