My great-grandfather, my grandfather and my father were farmers. My father had a fixed idea that I would become a farmer too. Although I respected him and was indeed skilled at doing some farm work, I didn’t agree that I should automatically follow in my father’s footstep.

When I was a teenager, my father happened to take me to an airport which belonged to one of his friends. It was the first time I had seen an aeroplane in real life. Knowing that I had never been on board, my father’s friend Tom offered me an opportunity to fly with him in his small aeroplane, and I quickly accepted his offer! When we took off, I felt nervous but thrilled. Being up in the clouds and looking at the view below was unlike anything I had ever felt. I was just enjoying it.

This time I would not hide my desire any more.

At the graduation ceremony, with my father present. I, as “Best Pilot” had to deliver a speech.

There are many things in senior middle school that I still remember clearly. I studied three years in a country school, which is faraway. However, it has a good environment and strict but kind teachers, so I loved the school and all my teachers very much.

One Friday, just as we began to read books in reading class at our desks, our teacher, Mrs. Hill, said that she needed to be out of the classroom for a few minutes. She asked the class to read in silence while she was gone. And she said that those who didn’t read books in silence would have to be punished when she returned. It was well-known that Mrs. Hill was strict. So we had to be on our best behaviour.

But that Friday, Mrs. Hill hadn’t been gone for ten seconds before some students in the classroom started to talk. From one corner of the room I heard Josh ask Nick, “Can I trade my candies for your toy?” At the other end of the room I heard Samantha tell Kayla, “Let’s sit together on the bus for the museum field trip tomorrow.” And so it went all around me, until about half of the students communicated with each other.

After a while, I, too, forgot about Mrs. Hill’s instructions. I turned back and asked my friend Liza, “Can I borrow your storybook and keep it for a day?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Mrs. Hill walked into the classroom. The whole class returned to silence immediately. And we were full of fear.

Mrs. Hill slowly looked around the classroom and said, “If you were talking while I was gone, then please stand up.” The guilt (内疚) suddenly weighed heavily on me. “I shouldn’t have talked while she was not in the classroom. And now I should be honest and admit my mistake bravely. This is what my parents have always told me.” I thought. Then, I summoned up (鼓起) my courage to stand up, worried about the punishment that waited for me. Then I looked around.

To my surprise, no one followed me and I was the only one in the classroom standing.

With Mrs. Hill’s encouragement, another student stood up.

“Mom, remember the time you made me go to a piano lesson with a broken arm?” my elder daughter asked as the family were enjoying a Sunday lunch. Ouch. That one hurt. I don’t know what hurt the most: the fact that Megan’s arm was broken or the fact that I did, in fact, take her to a piano lesson with a fresh break.

I vividly remember the day of the broken arm. As I picked up Megan, my little fifth-grader calmly stated, “My arm hurts. I can’t lift it.”

“What happened?”

“I fell.”

“Did you go to the nurse’s office?”

“No. I asked Mr. Smith, but he said I needed to take the spelling test. By the time the test was over, it was time to go.

Obviously, Mr. Smith, Megan’s teacher, was focused on the task at hand and not listening to my child.

By the time we finished this discussion, we were in front of her piano teacher’s house. There was no such thing as a cell phone in those days, so my plan was to call the doctor from the teacher’s home phone while Megan had lesson. The lesson was already paid for, right? While waiting for the doctor to come to the phone, I looked around the comer to check how the lesson was going. There sat my brave girl, holding her arm up to the keyboard with her other hand. As I finished arranging a doctor’s office visit, Megan finished her lesson with tears in her eyes.

We hurried to the doctor’s where an X-ray showed that, in fact, she did have a fractured (骨折的) arm. I watched her face, teeth digging into her bow bottom lip, while the nurses moved the arm into the right position.

By the time we arrived home, supper was long overdue. I hurried to prepare a quick meal while Megan told the whole story to her dad and little sister. I overheard her say, “Mom made me go to my piano lesson.” Wow, had I really done that?

Perhaps Mr. Smith wasn’t the only person focused on the task and not the child.

I called in sick for both of us the next day.