Stories about old notebooks

1. I don't know since when, I have the habit of saving old notebooks.

I kept my college notebooks, even though many decades have passed, the paper is yellowed from the subsidy period, a time of great hardship. I could not bear to throw away the notebooks that I had studied and taken careful, diligent notes in. I cherished what I had learned from my teachers, from the days when I was still in school, when I was very young, until later, when I was old. I remember clearly, when I was very young, my father said: “Books and papers in Chinese characters, you must not let them be dirty. Because they are the words of the Saints. You must respect those words!”

I did not learn Chinese characters. I only learned the national language and two other languages, French and English. I studied for many years with many teachers, but I never heard my teachers say the same words as my father did. My father only studied up to the third grade in a village school during the French colonial period, but I still remember what he said. In my subconscious, I always treasured the notebooks with my lessons.

2. Next to keeping my own notebooks, I often keep the notebooks with my two sons' handwriting, from the days when they were in elementary school until they went to college later. Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, I never thought I could easily let go of those notebooks of my children! Even though it has been a long time since the days when they studied, they took notes on those notebooks.

For me, every time I open a notebook of my child, I imagine in my mind, and in my heart: My son carefully wrote those lines in his notebook, stroke by stroke, following the teacher's instructions, from the first writing exercises, to the subjects of other classes later on. From here, the children will have more new knowledge, have more understanding about the life around them, the world around them.

I love my children so much that I cannot bear to throw away those notebooks! Even though I know that the number of notebooks will increase over time. I arrange the notebooks of each of my sons into bags according to each school year, with notes on them. The house where our small family lives is not very big, but I still have space to keep my children's notebooks for many years.

3. I used to keep my school notebooks from a long time ago. Then I carefully and lovingly kept my children's school notebooks. I considered it as a way to keep souvenirs of the time when I and my two children put a lot of effort into studying.

Oh, my children's notebooks from those days are quite far away, but why do I feel that they still carry the warmth of the days when they were written, with different colors of ink, with handwriting that gradually changed over time by my beloved children! Those notebooks, cannot be expressed in words, but they are witnesses of a time, they silently express the efforts of the children on the path of learning, from the first stage to the next stages of life. It is a journey of learning for many years, day by day, gradually absorbing scientific knowledge under the roof of schools. Then, when the children grow up and enter life, they will apply what they have learned into useful things for today and for tomorrow.

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