Although I couldn't make it, I couldn't be calm for the next few days. My brother's final departure always flashes in front of my eyes. Even in his dreams, there are bits and pieces of his life, which reminds me of his short life, and of course it is limited to everything I know.
My brother is six years older than me, but these six years have prevented us from growing up together. The age gap caused by this makes me unable to enter his world and get to know him well after all.
Since I was a little sensible, he has become a big boy of sixteen or seventeen. At that time, he was very active and always liked to jump. He loves the younger generation of the same age in the village more than wrestling and strength, and thinks about going to the outside world all day long, but he is a little dismissive of the hope that his parents have always placed on him to study.
Although his parents told him in every way, they failed to trap his heart that was about to travel.
I remember it was Sunday. He should have gone back to school five kilometers away, but he got home when the sun was about to set. He went into the house and put his schoolbag on the kang. Before my father sat on the kang smoking a cigarette and asked questions, he said directly, "I won't go to school." I am going to work in Shanxi with my uncle. " As soon as this was said, the whole cave immediately fell into a terrible silence. I was surprised to see the silence: I saw him standing on the edge of the kang, straightening up, showing a fearless look in the face of danger; Father frowned, and the cigarette holder with a pipe in his mouth kept smoking, and the anger in his heart turned into white smoke in the bright and dark fireworks. Mother even lowered her head and sat on a small stool by the fire, showing confusion. Finally, my father broke the silence. He knocked off the tobacco ash on the edge of the kang and said slowly, "If you don't get it, you won't get it, but remember, it's your choice." Don't blame me for not providing you with a school. " In this way, he made a choice that he thought was very correct at that time and I thought was absolutely wrong. Perhaps it is because of this choice that his life gradually moved towards a sad situation. In his later life, although he didn't clearly express regret for his original choice, he did sigh that if he continued to go to school, he might have a good future.
It seems that the place where he went at that time was Linfen, Shanxi. His uncle was a worker in a steel plant at that time, and he also went there as an apprentice. Later, the steel mill closed down, and he and his uncle worked as miners in a private aluminum mine. In short, he stayed in Shanxi for five or six years. During this period, he was basically self-sufficient, but he occasionally remitted some money when his family was in urgent need, but not too much. I still remember that my mother often complained that he ignored his family. Father didn't care, only said that he didn't intend to rely on him. He just wants to grow up outside, and he'd better bring a daughter-in-law.
But I remember that in the summer of 2002, he suddenly went home and brought back a brand-new Hisense color TV and a DVD projector. At that time, there were few color TVs in the village. His behavior really brought great glory to his family, and he was proud of it for a long time. I still remember there was a TV station (I really don't remember which TV station). ) In the afternoon, Qiong Yao's Deep Rain and Dew was shown, so every afternoon, the cave was crowded with people, watching Ku Quich, Zhao Wei, Ruby Lin and Alec Su struggling in that cruel and complicated emotion. This phenomenon continued until the end of the TV series. Later, he bought many CDs, including all kinds of Hong Kong action movies, especially those made in Zhou Ruifa. He likes Zhou Ruifa very much, so he knows that Mark in movies often parades around the city with a toothpick in his mouth. This move of his made me feel grateful to him, because I could make myself proud by his prestige and learn more about the outside world through the TV he brought back. It was a very good thing for me that he didn't go out again that year, because he increased my pocket money from two yuan to ten yuan a week.
I don't know why, in one year when he was about twenty-four or five years old, his black hair fell off quickly, which made him very hit. He is very concerned about the impact of this external change on his life. He has been trying to find all possible treatments until the last moment of his life. I still remember when he was struggling with his illness, one day he looked in the mirror and said, "I didn't get well, and my hair fell out a lot." We are also glad that this may be a good sign, but the new hair didn't grow, but he is gone forever.
It was in those years that he began to become very decadent, spending money like water, living a life without today, and began to drink heavily, so he often had conflicts with his family. He seems to have completely forgotten the grandiloquence when he decided to travel to the society, and he has no plan for life at all, as if he were going to live his life in a daze from now on. In the meantime, he was still wandering around. First, he learned to drive with others. Less than two years after he got his driver's license, he got tired of driving, so he learned to make steel structures, but in the end he got nothing.
It was not until his father died that he finally looked mature and decided to drive, and promised my mother and me that he would be responsible for this family in the future and earn some money to support this rotten family. However, his previous drinking brought him terrible consequences. Just one year after his father died, he was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer.
After his death, I think that if he can be patient with life and stick to one thing, his life will not be so bleak, and maybe he can even become a poet. I remember that in his first few years at work, every time he came home at the end of the year, there was a notebook in his bag. There are many things written in it. Once I opened it and found that he was actually writing poems, including modern poems and ancient poems. Most of them are quatrains. At that time, although I didn't know if it had artistic value, it was still very easy to read because it rhymed.
The future can be planned, but it is too late to arrange the past. I can undertake his life here, but in the face of the fact that everyone's life path is their own choice, I can only sigh as a bystander, so everything that happens on the road is only their own responsibility.
After he left, I tried to define his life, but I couldn't start. Maybe life is undefined. His life, ordinary and ordinary, did not appear different because of its brevity-he did not catch a glimpse like a meteor. If anything, it is that he suffered more inner pain than the average person when he was alive.
Although he lived to be 35 years old, he never married. He is not a celibate. On the contrary, he had several emotional experiences, but they all ended in failure. Apart from poverty, the rest may be that he lacks a firm belief in life.
I don't know much about his emotional experience. I only remember that he once brought home a girl, a tall girl. I don't remember whether she has a oval face or not, but those wandering eyes left a deep impression on me, because as soon as she entered the house, she quickly scanned all the people and things in the room, and then her face immediately became dim. He was very excited at that time, and kept talking about getting married, and quickly prepared for the "three golds" (gold ring, gold necklace, earrings). But one day not long after, he came home alone, moping, sitting on a stool just smoking, and others ignored him. A few days later, he changed everything he was going to get married into drinks and poured it into his stomach. He was 27 years old that year. Then, in the year of his father's death, he brought back a girl, short, slightly fat, with a plump oval face that was slightly aloof, and her expression was naturally mixed with weakness and strength, which was typical of Guanzhong women's character. He took care of her, and in the end she owed him nothing. Although they were not married, she stayed with him in his last days until he was buried.
I thought his emotional journey was just like that, but I obviously underestimated his charm. When arranging his funeral, two women attracted the most attention. They are fashionable in clothes and have good faces, but they are extremely sad. From beginning to end, they stood in front of his spirit, tearing their hearts out. I thought it was a friend of his classmates, but it was incredible because their grief was obviously much stronger than others. Later, my mother told me that both of them had emotional entanglements with him, but they ended because of the opposition of their families at that time, and one of them should be his first love. These things happened when he was about 25 years old. So I finally understood why he became decadent in those years-the most easily disheartened thing in this world is the breakup of love.
Speaking of inner suffering, the taste of waiting for death is unbearable. I really saw how two people struggling in the shadow of death spent the rest of their lives. One is my father, the other is him. After all, his father was old and his two children were adults, and his worries were less. But he is different, he is still young, and there are many things waiting for him to do. His reluctance can be imagined.
During his serious illness, he talked to me about life and death.
On the day of the holiday, I went to see him and gave him the prepared living expenses. He accepted the money shyly and insisted that I stay for dinner. He took the two dishes prepared before out of the pot, put two bottles of beer prepared for me in front of me, and kept urging me to move chopsticks. He arranged everything, so he sat at the table and started chatting with me. Let's talk about something else first, and then discuss with each other some remedies found online, but he suddenly turned the topic to the question of life and death (I never talked about life and death in front of him at that time, and I was surprised when he started talking. )。 He said: "I have never thought about death before, but I have never been afraid. I didn't really start thinking until my father died, but I still didn't have that fear. You know, I've always been free and easy. But when it's really my turn ... "Then I interrupted him and said," Don't talk nonsense. " He smiled, raised his hand to signal me to continue listening, and then continued: "When it was really my turn, I was really scared. I suddenly became very worried about what to do after I died. What will I become if I die? " Do you think I'll become a ghost? "Speaking of which, he made a face at me and embarrassed me for a while, not knowing how to respond to him. After a moment of silence, I said, "Don't dream of a day, listen to the doctor, rest assured and adjust your mind." People often report on TV that many seriously ill patients have recovered because of their good mentality. " He gave a wry smile and was silent for a while, then suddenly began to sob and said, "But I can't help it, I can't help thinking in which direction ..."
In his last days, he couldn't work because of illness, so he had to languish in a rented house for one day. He started writing poems when he was free, and sent me some. What he wrote is still not very literary, but the despair and unwillingness revealed between the lines is obvious enough to express his inner suffering.
These words may not be poems in the true sense, but they are precious after repeated consideration by a person with low educational level in despair. As you can imagine, a person waiting for despair, sadly leaning against the window, watching the cold night, in the cold moonlight, accompanied by helplessness and grief, patiently pondering a sentence that can express his heart. What is this picture?
Reluctance, despair, regret, relief, nothing can stop him from leaving at last. It seemed nothing special that day, but my mother called and said that he couldn't come, so I hurried to the hospital. At this time, he has fallen into a coma. With the help of relatives and friends, he hurriedly took him back to his hometown and returned to the cave where his father died. At home, he was still in a coma, breathing the cold air in the middle of the night. Until 3: 40 in the morning, he rushed to bliss with his mother's hysterical cry and all his joys and sorrows (the moment he left was not that simple, and the scene at that time was too disturbing to show again. )。 At that moment, I stood before him.
He didn't say a word to me when he left, and even on his deathbed, he didn't mention me. Maybe he still doesn't like my misunderstanding of him. I have always felt that he didn't set a good example for his brother and didn't do his duty as a big brother. I hate his unbridled behavior, I don't like his self-abandonment, and I can't tolerate his wayward world. I have always thought that as a child of a poor family in the mountains, you are not qualified to be willful, let alone give up on yourself. What you need is to make constant efforts to change your destiny and then lead the whole family to happiness, which is not only related to the change of living conditions, but also to the future dignity of this family in the world. But in the last few years of his life, I have forgiven him. As an individual, he has the right to choose his own life path. He has the right to live for himself in this short life. No matter how long his life is, he must live for himself, regardless of whether he has contributed to the family or not, because as long as he is there, his family is still complete.
On the whole, my relationship with him is still very harmonious. After all, blood is thicker than water. In the spring of 20 13, I was betrayed by my girlfriend of six years. I was so depressed that I almost lost confidence in life. After he knew it, he began to get busy, constantly looking for me to go out and talk to me, and introducing me everywhere. At that time, he was seriously ill. Only then did I realize that his concern for me was far beyond my imagination. After I found my girlfriend again, he told me mysteriously that I would give him less money in the future and not tell my girlfriend about his illness. I know he is afraid of my feelings because of his illness. In order to meet his future sister-in-law, he thought for a long time and finally one day implemented it according to his requirements. That day, I made an appointment with my girlfriend (that is, my wife now). ), came to the street with him, I went to find my girlfriend, and he followed me at a certain distance and treated himself as a stranger. He said it was best not to let others see his illness, and he could meet his future sister-in-law. Afterwards, he said responsibly that this girl is reliable and can come with me. As predicted, we finally got married, but unfortunately he didn't see it. Perhaps it was that kind of fate that made his future sister-in-law get lost several times on the muddy mountain road of 100 kilometers and rushed to his hometown to see him off, regardless of the rainy weather. This is also a good reward for his kind evaluation.
I used to think that his life was an absolute failure, and this failure was absolutely because he chose the wrong life path. But slowly, I overturned this idea, because I can't define what kind of life is successful. Can high position and high weight be described as success? Money is success? Or fame and fortune is success? Perilla's "Thousand Red Cliffs Fu" is well said, "A drop in the ocean, send ephemera to heaven and earth. Mourn for a moment of my life and admire the infinite Yangtze River. " In the whole universe and time, human life is like a mayfly in the boundless world, as small as a chestnut rice in the sea. Our life is only a short moment, even the surging waters of the Yangtze River are not as good as Cao's heroes. "Safe now"? People "must view it from its changers, but heaven and earth are invisible for a moment". From its changers, things are infinite. Therefore, the most important thing in life is to live in the present, "the breeze on the river, the bright moon in the mountains, and the ears are stained." So it seems that life is not a success, so there is no failure.
At the end, I couldn't help but open my collection of photos about him, all taken in his last year. He played with his last girlfriend in Guanzhong, and there was no anxiety in the picture. Every photo is smiling and enthusiastic, which is by no means false, because I can feel that happiness is from the heart through photos.
So I thought, since I am so happy, where can I say that his life is bleak?