My father was poor in expressing his feelings. I knew that my dad loved me, but he showed me his love in unusual ways. There was one particular time in my life when this became real to me. I always believed that my parents had a good marriage, but gradually the strain ( 拉紧 ) on their relationship was quite evident. However, I was not prepared for the day when Dad decided to leave. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t going to happen. The night before he left, I stayed up in my room for a long time. I cried and I wrote a long letter to my dad. I told him how much I loved him and that I would forever be his child. As I folded my note, I stuck in a picture of me with a saying I had always heard: “Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a real daddy.” Early the next morning, as my dad left our house, I slipped my letter into one of his bags. Two weeks later, my mother told me that they decided that there were things the both of them could and would change and that their marriage was worth saving. “Well, Dad said when he read your letter, it made him cry. It meant a lot to him and I have hardly ever seen your dad cry. After he read your letter, he called to ask if he could come over to talk. Whatever you said really made a difference to your dad.” A few days later my dad was back. We never talked about the letter. I guess that it became a secret between us.