On July 30 that year, my mother spent 86 years of her life, bid farewell to five children and more than 20 grandchildren, and drove to Hexi. The bitterness of half-life and the sweetness of half-life will always be the past tense. What is left for children is eternal yearning.
It took my mother only two months from illness to death, and she didn't inform her son who was thousands of miles away until she couldn't get up. I immediately packed my bags for the next day and sent a telegram. But the next day, the key middle school No.14 announced the admission of new students. My son said he had to wait another day. It was this day that his mother was knocked down again. When I got back, I heard that my mother suddenly got up, washed her face, combed her hair and sat in the main room, smiling and waiting for me to appear. She can listen to magpies in the morning and sniffle at night, but she can't see me. Mom went to bed again and never got up. I knelt in front of my mother's bed and combed her hair with my hands. My mother took her grandson's hand and asked, which one? She still misses her second grandson.
According to the medical conditions at that time, a comprehensive physical examination was carried out, and no major diseases were found, but they just weakened day by day. The four sisters take turns guarding. A week later, I had to go back and try to bring my second son back. After returning to Kaifeng, I was on pins and needles, and there was a lot of work in the office. Four days later, I took advantage of a business trip to Shijiazhuang Municipal Government to pick up my second son. My mother's eyes are very excited. She said that I have lived to this day and I have no regrets. My son and daughter-in-law are fine, and both grandchildren have grown so tall. There's something I want to tell you. Your father's grave was leveled during the Great Leap Forward, and only the general direction was recorded. If you can't find it by then, burn a piece of paper and dig down from where it fell. If you dig out snakes and frogs, don't hurt them, let them go.
I brought back all kinds of food that she likes to eat. Now she just looks and feels, and has no appetite. Mom, it's too late for my son to be filial.
Mom's days are numbered, and I want to take my lover back for the third time. As soon as I got home, I received a telegram, which said, "Mother died, please go home as soon as possible." My wife and I climbed to my mother's grave and cried loudly. Mom, we're late. We were not with you before we died. I am an unfilial son.
On the day of the funeral, people went to dig graves early in the morning. Until ten o'clock, they had not found my father's grave, so they had to burn paper according to mother's dying instructions. Sure enough, the place where the paper fell was behind dad's coffin, and the place where the paper was burned was in front of the coffin. Two snakes and two frogs were indeed dug up in the grave, and no one hurt them, watching them enter the farmland.
After my mother's funeral, I looked at the empty house with mixed feelings. I think, at the beginning, every time after school, I always shouted, Mom, I'm back, and my mother gave me a long promise. Hey, let's eat. After taking part in the work, every time I go home, I still shout, Mom, we are back. My mother promises, hey, you are tired, take off your shoes and rest on the kang. In the future, I will never hear this voice again.
My mother never had a name. When she was a child, people called her Neil. When she grew up, she married and called her sister-in-law, aunt and son-in-law. The production team had to write only one name' Gao'. But ... the word' Gao' once caused a sensation in three townships and five miles.
During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, my father was taken to work as a coolie, and there was no news when he left. Under the banner of the big landlord, many disputes were caused in order to expand the homestead, forcing my mother to remarry. At that time, I already had two sisters, and my mother looked at each other coldly and clung to the ancestral property. The most serious incident was that Qi Li accused my mother of taking part in robbing crops and took my mother and four villagers to the pseudo-township office. My mother said that I wouldn't go unless I violated the king's law. Four villagers actually carried my mother out. It has just rained and the ground is muddy. My mother struggled to scold. The two daughters drove away crying in the back. Two villagers gave up, and the other two dragged their mother for 800 meters in the mud. The coat fell off several times, and her mother grabbed the mud and fell on their faces several times. When I arrived in the village, I put it back on the spot because there was no evidence against me, but this humiliation made my mother cry for a day and a night, and many people could not persuade her. Uncle said, can you cry the national flag to death? In a word, my mother stopped crying. The next day, my mother went to Taihang Mountain.
My grandfather's home is at the eastern foot of Taihang Mountain, with mountains in the west and North China Plain in the east, which is the only way for the Eighth Route Army to resist Japan. My uncle is an anti-attendance member of the underground party branch.
Hearing his mother's crying, he was so angry that he made up his mind to tidy up the flag house. However, the party organization does not agree. Big JIU also found a battalion commander of the 17th Route Army, nicknamed "Little Whirlwind". He is a bandit who specializes in robbing local tyrants and evil gentry. Because of the anti-Japanese war, he was recruited by the 17th Route Army and became a battalion commander. During the Sino-Japanese anti-Japanese cooperation, my uncle had more contact with him. He was very angry when he heard what happened to his mother. Al-Shabaab is his profession, and he readily agreed to this tone.
According to their rules, we should first survey the terrain, master the dynamics of the Japanese and puppet troops, set up sentries at various intersections, and plan the advance and retreat routes. Floating wealth and food are scattered on the streets for people to plunder. Take the gold, silver and money away.
Xiao personally took people into the village to investigate. The party organization still knew about this matter and resolutely stopped it, saying that the main contradiction at present is anti-Japanese, and this revenge should be avenged, but not now. It didn't work. However, the story of a small whirlwind entering the village has been widely circulated. The flag was frightened. He apologized and took out 100 yuan to solve the matter. My mother immediately scattered it on the street. Many people robbed the money, and your flag climbed down and robbed everyone.
Jizhong is the hardest hit area of the Japanese army, and the "three light" policy is implemented. This year, before the grain was ripe, it was robbed by the Japanese devils, and they ate three radishes a day. Two more things happened this year. One is that Big Uncle was arrested and killed in Donggang while escorting some young students to Yan 'an. One is that my mother reluctantly sent her four-year-old second sister to a nun out of a crisis of survival. The temple is the only place where Japanese devils can't get their hands on it. Mom's heart is broken. Her ears kept echoing the heartbreaking cry of her daughter while shaving.
Dad walked for more than a year and miraculously came back. He was arrested in Shijiazhuang, by train, ship, ship and train, and finally arrived in Jilin.
Their task is to repair the bridge. Once, the bridge collapsed before it was finished. Many people died under the bridge, and many people died on the bridge. Dad jumped in a hurry, landed on his head and was unconscious. When I woke up in the middle of the night, my headache seemed to explode and the lights on the construction site were gone. I can't see anyone alive except the dead. Dad went out of Jilin, crossed Shenyang, entered Shanhaiguan by begging, and actually touched home. Since then, I have left a headache. Some things are coincidences. In 2002, when receiving a delegation of Japanese enterprises in Dong Tian, when talking about product quality, a man named Saito said that his father was the technical director when he was building a bridge in the northeast of China, and he committed suicide by caesarean section because the bridge collapsed.
After liberation, the pseudo-security commanders Ge Mengmin and Ye Peihua who killed revolutionary martyrs were robbed and killed. The flag was swept out of the house and lived in its own sheepfold. Many people, including cadres, advised my mother to tell the flag and arrest him. At this time, my mother was unusually calm, and simply said, it's over, forget it. My mother didn't say a word at the endless criticism meeting. Qi, unable to withstand criticism, took his son to Inner Mongolia and died outside his mouth.
When I was three years old, my father died of a headache. Since then, my mother has supported this family by herself.
My four sisters are hardworking and good at sewing at home, in the fields and in everything. They all fear their mothers, and they are all tools for their mothers to tame. Only I dare to talk back to my mother and even roll on the ground. If there is something delicious, I will eat first and eat more. Give me something fun to play first. Once, my second sister bought me a sesame seed cake, and I was eating it. My second sister said, tell my sister to taste it. I reached over and she really took a bite. I cried and threw the sesame seed cake on the ground, so she had to buy me another one. How old was I when I was breastfeeding? It's embarrassing to say it now. I ate until I was five years old and even slept with my nipples. That is, this year, my little bully life was completely over.
On this day, my friends and I played a game of burying the dead. He took a small coal fire shovel and I took a knife with a broken saw blade. I dug a hole in the ground. His sister came and kicked the hole flat, pulling her brother and saying, stop playing with him. It's really disappointing. Before she straightened up, I cut a knife on the top of her head and blood ran down her eyebrows and ears. She ran home crying all the way. Well, we belong to the same family. Although she is three years older than me, she still calls me Uncle Li. After a while, I saw my mother coming with a rolling pin. I knew something was wrong, so I ran away, and my mother was in no hurry. I turned around the front and back streets three times. In retrospect, my mother didn't give up at all. I hugged my mother's leg and cried. Mom took my hand and said, go home. When I got home, my feet didn't stop. Kick my ass in the back and tell me to kneel down. I was afraid for the first time. My mother took a ruler and opened my hand and threw it down. The pain is terrible. I cried like a pig until my hands were unconscious. At this time, my mother didn't speak. You are so cruel at an early age. Don't you know that knives can kill people? What do you want to be when you grow up? Killing and setting fire? I want to fight again. I hugged my mother's arm and said, mom, I won't dare in the future. I dare not do it again. Weaning me that night and giving me a quilt. I dare not say anything. My palm is swollen for more than half a month, but I will never forget it.
I went to school the next year. In order not to be bullied, I give my favorite food, such as fried beans and peanuts, to their older children. They not only protect me, but also help me with my homework. My homework is a ditch. Teachers often praise me. Who knows that when it comes to the exam, none of them will be with me, and they won't know a question. Finally, I scribbled a few numbers and filled them in. As soon as I got on the list, my arithmetic score was zero and my Chinese score was fifty-six. I don't even know what addition and subtraction mean.
My mother didn't criticize me, but I was in the field all summer.
I shaved my head, my mother said. That's what farmers do. I am too young to work in the production team. My mother told me to go to the private plot, and I could never finish the work of weeding, hoeing, fertilizing, watering and picking vegetables. Get up early with my little sister before dawn and never sleep late again. In the afternoon, my head was so hot that I couldn't work late for a while. Even if the work on the private plot is finished, ask me to mow the grass by the roadside and collect firewood in the Woods. I can't be idle anyway. I don't understand why dry wood can be used to make a fire and cut so much grass. I don't feed sheep or cows, so I have to throw them into the cesspit. Other students catch slugs, dig sparrows, swim and do their homework. I don't like it anymore. My classmates asked me to play, but my mother said no. They are students. If you are a farmer, farmers have to work in the fields. One summer, my young and fair face was tanned and tired.
School is about to start, and all the students have to report for duty and buy books. My mother didn't want me to go at all. How much I wanted to go to school then. The teacher came home and asked me if I still wanted to go to school. I haven't answered yet. It doesn't matter if my mother says I don't want to work in the fields. I said, I think, I think, I must study hard. From then on, I knew I had to study hard. My grades have risen rapidly. By the fifth and sixth grade, I got an A in both compositions, which is unique in our school.
After entering junior high school, my sisters flew away like birds. We're the only ones left at home. To save money, I didn't live on campus. I commute to 12 miles every day. I ate pickles, coarse grains and steamed bread at noon. I ran for three years. Go to the production team to work on holidays and earn points. In autumn, the captain took care of me and told me to go to the fields to see the crops at night, which earned me six points a night. The two of us, one in the first half of the night and the other in the second half of the night, kept patrolling with a gun without bullets and slept in the cabin after midnight. Eat at five o'clock the next morning and go to school at half past five. Arriving at school at seven o'clock can still catch up with self-study for a while. Do you know when mom gets up to cook? In late autumn, cotton and cabbage were not harvested in the field, and another person was ill, so I had to be on duty alone in the field. It's dark, the north wind is howling, it's cold, and I'm fighting all over. I look at the stars in the sky, but I can't see the people on the ground. I felt lonely and went home quietly. How I want to have a good sleep at home. But mom got up and said, if you can't stand it, I'll leave. What should I do if I lose something from other places? I had to obediently go to the wild where the north wind roared.
After graduating from high school, I was admitted to a school directly under the central government with the first place in the county. This school has a beautiful environment, including a front garden, a back garden, a lotus pond and a fountain. Teaching building, laboratory building, laboratory, affiliated factory, everything. The teaching staff is strong. All expenses are provided by the state. Less than a month after entering school, Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day came together. Each student gives out four moon cakes. I have never seen such a good moon cake in the countryside. I want to send them back to my mother. After lunch the day before the National Day holiday, I hurried to the railway station, and there was no car. What shall we do? Go back. Half price tickets can save 40 cents. Eighty miles. I didn't get home until midnight. Mother heard me knocking at the door and came out barefoot. Ask me how to come back. I said, I'm going back. Mother was holding a moon cake, tears streaming down her face.
After the holiday, I still go to work in the production team, even if it costs 30 cents a day. I will try my best to earn my mother's rations back. My mother is also worried about my book fee. When I first went to school, my sisters pooled their money. We are not rich now, so mother must find a way by herself. She bought noodles at a high price, baked them into cakes and sold them at the railway station. As soon as the train stopped, they all gathered around the window,' Do you want cake, do you want cake?' When the railway patrol arrived, people scattered. People of my mother's age run slowly, often being pulled and throwing baskets far away. When they went to get the car, it had already left. This holiday made me earn six dollars and eighty cents, and I quietly stuffed eighty cents under the mat. These six dollars are my books, stationery and pocket money for a semester.
Four years of study, internship and graduation project are all over. It's time to assign work and fill out the volunteer form. I am worried again. There are no local indicators. Recently, there are many classmates in Taiyuan, Tianjin, and it's not our turn. Farther away, there are many enterprises directly under the central government in Zhengzhou, Yanbian and Luoyang, Henan Province, all of which are newly built and lack of people. The farthest places are Urumqi, Jiamusi, Kunming and Guangzhou. I asked my mother for advice. She said that you are paid by the state and listen to the public. I said, I want to be close to you, but if there is no close person, who will take care of you? Mom said, just adopt a grandson. Loyalty and filial piety are hard to tolerate, so they were assigned to Kaifeng.
I left six dollars and eighty cents of my first month's salary as a souvenir, and sent the rest to my mother. Coincidentally, after my youngest son graduated and assigned a job, his first month's salary was also 6.80 yuan, and the rest was given to his mother and his brother and mother who went to college and began to worry about my marriage. Letters are like bombers, wave after wave. In the first year, I refused because I was not allowed to fall in love during my internship. The next year, my mother wrote that if you don't get married, you will bring a woman to see you. I also want to find one in my hometown, leaving many sequelae. Mom doesn't seem satisfied with finding one here. I'm desperate. I had to lie to her that I was already taken, so you don't have to worry. Mom said, that's ok, but you must send the photos back, or bring them back from visiting relatives during the New Year. Tina, where is your lover? Who wants to marry a child from the countryside? Coincidentally, God never shuts one door but he opens another. Sure enough, a sister Lin fell from the sky.
I am an engineering technician. I worked in the infrastructure department for more than a year and then transferred to the personnel department. On this day, a draftsman was sent to the technical department. She reported to me first. As soon as we met, we both paused and said,' We seem to have met' almost at the same time.
It turns out that when I was working in the infrastructure sector, I was still a planned economy. Every year, I went to Beijing ministries and commissions to ask for building materials and equipment indicators. Once when I came back, I met a girl who was leaving the station at Beijing Railway Station and dropped a book in a hurry. I said, hey, your book. She smiled back, and we went to get the book at the same time, with a blue stamp on the cover, and opened the library. We smiled at each other, she said thank you and left, but I was shocked. She is so beautiful, wearing a military coat and two braids. Look at her back, slim and graceful, with pigtails. When she turned the corner, she looked back again, which made me spaced out. I was in a daze all the way. I really regret not asking her name and school, so I thought, why should I ask someone else? I really don't know when I can see her again. How many times I saw her in my dream, how many times I wandered around the place where I met at Beijing Railway Station, trying to make her suddenly appear, but it was really looking for a needle in a haystack.
Unexpectedly, we meet again today. Needless to say, I took her back that Spring Festival. When she respectfully called' Niang', my mother happily replied' Hey, hey'. Many girls, daughters-in-law, aunts and aunts come from this city to see their daughters-in-law. Mom was so happy that she couldn't keep her mouth shut. The next year, we got married after she became a frequent visitor. She was pregnant with her first child and invited my mother. The first time I went to town, my lover gave her a bath, cut her nails, cooked her favorite meals, took her around Longting, Suoguo Temple and Yuwangtai, and bought her new clothes. Soon gave birth to a big fat boy weighing seven pounds. My mother hugged her grandson and said, I finally saw another generation. I saw that my mother was happiest.
Every other year, we gave birth to a second son, and my mother was happy to burn incense and kowtow. This just caught the last bus, only two children. Only one child is allowed in the future. Otherwise, mom will be in a hurry to give birth. Later, my mother couldn't adapt to city life and missed her daughters, so she had to send her back. Choose a grandson to live with her.
In the 1980s, I went to the Northeast on business, cut a section of Gu Teng on the cliff of Qianshan Mountain, and came back to make a crutch for her. She couldn't put it down and stayed with her all her life.