父亲节英语演讲稿：My Father’s Hands(2)

One night, when he thought no one saw, he slipped away with my second grade reader andlabored over the words until they became too difficult. He pressed his forehead into the pagesand wept. Thereafter, no amount of persuading could bring him to sit with pen and paper. Hedid still like to listen to my mother, and then to me, read to him. He especially enjoyedlistening to us read to him from the Bible.

　　My father was forced to let the bank take possession of most of the acreage6) of his farmlandone year when a crop failure meant he couldn’t make the mortgage7) payment. He was ableto keep one acre of the farmland where the small farm house was located.

　　From the farm to road building and later to factory work, his hands served him well. His mindwas keen, and his will to work was unsurpassed. His enthusiasm and efficiency brought anoffer to become a line boss--until he was handed the qualification test.

　　Years later, when Mother died, I tried to get him to come and live with my family, but heinsisted on staying in the small house with the garden plot and a few farm animals close by.His health began to fail, and he was in and out of the hospital with two mild heart attacks. OldDoc Green saw him weekly and gave him medication, including nitroglycerin8) tablets to putunder h is tongue should he feel an attack coming on.

　　My last fond memory of Dad was watching as he walked across the brow of a hillside meadowwith those big warm hands resting on the shoulders of my two children. He stopped to point outa pond where he and I had fished years before. The night, my family an d I flew back to ourown home. Three weeks later Dad was dead because of a heart attack.

　　I returned to my father’s home for the funeral. Doc Green told me how sorry he was. In fact, hewas bothered a bit, because he had just written Dad a new prescription, and the druggist9)had filled it. Yet the bottle of pills had not been found on Dad’s person. Doc Green felt that apill might have kept him alive long enough to summon help.

　　I went out to Dad’s garden plot where a neighbor had found him. In grief, I stooped to t racemy fingers in the earth where he had reached the end of his life. My hand came to rest on ahalf-buried brick, which I aimlessly lifted. I noticed underneath it the twisted and battered, yetunbroken, container that had been beaten into the soft earth.

　　As I held the container of pills, the scene of Dad struggling to remove the cap and indesperation trying to break it with the brick flashed painfully before my eyes. With deepanguish I knew why those big hands had lost in their struggle with death. For there, imprintedon the cap, were the words：“Child-proof cap--Push down and twist to unlock. ”

　　The druggist later confirmed that he had just started using the new safety caps.

　　I knew it was not a rational act, but I went right downtown and bought a leather-boundpocket dictionary and a gold pen set. I bade Dad good-bye by placing them in those big hands,once so warm, which had lived so well, but had never learned to write.