White Olive Tree

Epilogue

Recently, on the occasion of planning the fifth anniversary edition, I once again visited Captain Li and Reporter Song’s home.  They had already moved to the Imperial City, and Xiao Shu had grown taller. He was in primary school, and he looked more and more like his father in appearance and posture.  There is a new member in their family, a five-year-old little pigeon who is studying in the top class of kindergarten.  Reporter Song opened a studio, and Captain Li became Major Li. He studied by himself, and although he worked at home, he also did research in his own field.  They seemed to have changed a bit, but nothing seemed to have changed. The tacit understanding and tenderness when getting along were still the same as before.
I originally wanted Song Ran to write another preface for the fifth anniversary edition, but she said that all the stories and emotions she wanted to write had been written four years ago, and there were no more emotions to write.
I respect her decision.
In the past five years, new wars have broken out around the world.  Looking at it this way, her preface seems timeless.  Even after twenty years, there is no need to add or subtract.
Luo Junfeng
September 1, 203X
Yudicheng
——
——
【Preface 3】
Published 18th Anniversary Edition
Preface by Linzi Li Songzhi
——
A week ago, Mr. Luo Junfeng, the editor and planner of my mother, Ms. Song Ran, contacted me and asked me to write a preface for the 20th anniversary edition of "The White Olive Tree".  I am just a 21-year-old science and engineering student, about the same age as Sasin in the book, with no writing talent or literary talent.  It sounds like I am not qualified to write a preface to a book, but Mr. Luo Junfeng asked me to write my thoughts.
"Write reflections" sounds like a propositional composition.  Feelings about one thing, or about everything?  Mr. Luo Junfeng didn’t give a scope, so I couldn’t figure it out clearly.
Many people say this is a book about war.  It is difficult for me to express my feelings about the war as someone who has never experienced it.  Although there are always wars between countries and regions, for me, that is too far away.
Although my parents have special status, my life is like that of an ordinary child, and I do not have any innate awareness of the issue of war.
My childhood was spent in the countryside of Jiangcheng.  My earliest memory is from my father.  I vaguely remember the scene when I was one or two years old. It was at dusk.  He held me as a child and walked across the leaf-covered field ridges. His arms and chest were the warmest and most solid support in my childhood memory.
My mother on the side kissed my forehead and called me: "Little A-Zan~~"
My father laughed: "Do you want to wake this little guy up?"
Of course I didn't wake up.  My father's arms were warm and safe. I stretched my arms and legs, hugged him and fell asleep.
Strangely enough, my mother always likes to call me Little A-Zan.  Probably because I look so much like my father.
The first teacher in my life was my father.  He taught me how to read and write, took me to fly kites, catch cicadas, fish for lobsters, crabs, and plant flowers and grass.  He said:
"Mom was afraid of this, so we still let the cicada go."
"Mom likes to eat lobsters. Catch a few more for her."
"Pick some flowers for mom and bring them back."
More often than not, my mother is by my side,
"A-Zan, put him down and let him go on his own."
"A-Zan, look at Xiaoshu's face being covered with mud, hahaha."
"A-Zan, why don't you steal a grapefruit? Hmm, okay? Forget it. We'll steal it next time when the little sapling isn't around."
…
Later, when Xu Zhi was born and I was old enough to go to school, my family moved to the Imperial City.  Growing up time flies by.  Year by year, I am growing up, but some things have not changed over the years.  My father has always been a gentle person, especially to my mother.
It may be difficult for many people to imagine, but my father and mother have never been separated for a day.  My father is in poor health and has to go to the hospital regularly every month.  Most of the time, he works from home with mother or accompanies her to the studio.
I have to admit that although I love my parents very much, like most children, I am too busy learning about the world and growing up, and I don’t pay that much attention to my parents’ lives and hearts.  What's more, there is a world between them that we, as children, cannot peek into or touch.
I never touched the deepest heart of my parents until I was nine years old.
On the tenth wedding anniversary, my father took my mother back to the countryside in Jiangcheng.  When I was looking for documentaries in my study, I accidentally discovered my mother’s unpublished manuscripts and diaries.  That day I discovered what the phrase "Daddy is going to the hospital" that I had grown accustomed to saying since I was a child actually meant.  The doctors were already at their wits' end, but my father kept struggling, for my mother, for the unyielding spirit in his bones, and for his unfinished pride and dreams.
It was also that year that the vague word war began to become clear in my world.
I started paying attention to the war and re-read the book.  I read it when I was a child and only read it as a story. I thought it was very exciting.  Reading it again, I felt pain.
It is even more sad to write this preface now.
How many people just read a story, and how many people care about the people in the story?  On that inconspicuous war anniversary, how many people remembered the past, and how many people paid attention to the survivors of the war?
As I write this, I think of my experiences in the past few years - I have met homeless veterans on the streets several times. They are destitute, decadent, ragged and mentally disordered.  Passers-by hurried past, but no one stopped.
At that time, I thought, does it mean that a moment of death is tragic, but a lifetime of survival is painful and shameful?
Later, I looked for books and documentaries, and I found many records about the victims, and countless movies and novels were created to commemorate them.  But little is said about the survivors.  Their faces blurred over time and disappeared into the long river.
In the past hundred years, many wars have broken out, including World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, Palestine and Israel... But no one seems to know why, and no one cares how the survivors survived.
Many of them are like veterans wandering on the streets. They have suffered huge trauma, but they can only exist but cannot live.  There is no way to return to normal life.
In the face of war, they became pawns of human tragedy, used up and then discarded.
My mother always said that suffering is disgusting and no one is willing to face it.
Therefore, survival is ugly and forgetting is silent.