To outsiders, my parents are still in poor health. As a matter of fact, I know their health is not as good as before. My mother has hypertension and rheumatism. Where does her knee often hurt? She had an operation the year before last, and the effect was not very good. It's just that my mother is a little swollen. At first glance, she still has some money. In fact, she is in poor health and has a poor memory. My father once smiled and said to me, your mother, look for the key a hundred times a day. You saw her put it in her pocket just now, but now she is looking for it again. Compared with my mother, my father's body is a little better and his memory is ok, but after all, time and tide wait for no man. My father's hair has long been completely white, and his teeth are about to fall out. His thin face is covered with wrinkles, and his eyes always cry at the sight of the wind. He advised him to see a doctor, but he always said simply that there was no need to see him. Every part of this old machine is loose, rusty and useless. Then he added with a smile, this is the law of nature, and no one can violate it. I feel particularly uncomfortable when I hear this. My father has always been the backbone and pillar of my family in my heart. He and his mother raised our six children and helped us get married. Now that we have our own family and children, we can realize the hardships and difficulties of life unconsciously. Therefore, every time I think about how hard it was for my parents to bring up our six children in those hard years, the past never goes away, just like last night's movie.
It is said that my father is an out-and-out farmer, but he is not. My father's status as a farmer is a mark left by a special era. It turns out that my father is an intellectual in a small village. From elementary school to junior high school, he has always been the best in the school. Later, I was sent to the normal school in the provincial capital without being admitted. He not only studied well, but also played flute and erhu, which was recognized as a genius by the students of that class. After graduating from normal school, my father became a glorious people's teacher.
The combination of mom and dad is entirely the words of parents and matchmakers. My educated father has many suitors among his colleagues, but my father's aunt has made arrangements with my sister-in-law to protect the media for him. My grandmother wanted to see her mother very much, so she got engaged to them. My father is a dutiful son. Seeing that my mother is hardworking and kind, she acquiesced in this marriage.
1962, the state implemented the policy of streamlining administration. In order to alleviate the financial pressure of the country, many teachers who come out of rural areas are issued with "Home Visit Certificates" by the country, and then go there to receive re-education from poor and middle peasants. Father answered the call and returned to his birthplace to continue his teaching career. It's just that he changed from a paid public teacher to a private teacher with work points. Back in the countryside, my father taught at school every day and my mother worked in the production team. This year, their first child, our eldest sister, was born, and the arrival of the eldest sister added a lot of fun to this family.
Three years later, one winter afternoon, my second sister, who was only ten months old at that time, suddenly fell ill and the situation was very critical. Her parents carried her to the county hospital and didn't go home until the next afternoon. She was hospitalized, but in those years when the economy and materials were scarce, where did she get the money for hospitalization? I couldn't afford to stay in the hospital at all, so I just made a transfusion bottle in the corridor of the hospital and didn't take it home until my second sister was in stable condition. But I still need to go to the county for an injection every day. My mother is anxious around, worried about my second sister's health, but reluctant to work hard every day. After discussing with my father, I decided to ask my father for leave. My father took my second sister to the county hospital for injections every day. In this way, my father traveled back and forth in the village and county for a week. My second sister's illness has been cured, but the work of private education has long been replaced. My father's job was lost silently.
When I can't be a teacher, my father has become an out-and-out farmer. Although there are many grievances in my heart, what can I do in that special era, even if I have many articles? Fortunately, my mother is virtuous and kind, comforting my father in many ways, letting him slowly get out of the haze and gradually adapt to the identity of farmers. Together with his mother, he became the main labor force of the production team. He listens to the division of labor of the captain every day and has a rest at sunrise and sunset. In the evening, his mother will do needlework for the whole family under kerosene lamps, while his father will read books under kerosene lamps or play erhu with a flute. Although the family is poor, it is also very fun. During this period, my third brother, fourth brother and little sister came to this world one after another, and the burden on my parents' shoulders increased bit by bit. During the day, they work hard in the fields, and sometimes at night, they take time to go fishing in the river to help their families.
We live in Jiangzhou. In early summer, the river rises. Before the rainstorm comes, the fish in the water will swim to the river slope to get oxygen. This is a good time to climb the net fish. Hard-working parents will seize the opportunity at this time, take a flashlight at night, crawl with a bag on their back, and set off quietly. When they reached the gentle river beach, their father was in deep water and their mother was in shallow water. They are holding wooden T-tracks, and the two ends of the rods are fixed on long semicircular fish nets. Father dragged the fishing net against the water in the deep water, and put one of the nets on the bottom of the water with his hands tightly, and moved forward slowly. Mother hung a flashlight around her neck, passed through the cloth bag and followed her in the shallows, clutching the net handle with both hands. As soon as she found fish jumping in the net, her father would quickly drag the net to the shore. At this time, her mother will wait for her father to go ashore and drag the net to the shore together. When the lively and jumping fish reach the shore, they just have to give in easily. After putting the caught fish into a cloth bag, they went into the water and started the next round of fishing. My parents sometimes wake us up when they come back from fishing in the middle of the night. We will gently get up and watch the fish for a while, and then go to sleep silently. We dare not speak loudly for fear that others will report to the brigade that our family is engaged in capitalism. One night passed, and when I got up the next morning, my grandmother had already made breakfast. There must be a bowl of delicious river fish on the table, which tempted our saliva. My mother also took some fresh fish caught last night to the market to sell, waiting for us to have breakfast together. After breakfast, my parents will go to work in the team again.
However, the good times did not last long, and our neighbors sued us, saying that this was capitalism. The brigade sent people to collect our fishing nets, arrested my father in the commune for two whole days, and asked my father to write a hundred self-criticism books and post them in various teams. Under such circumstances, my father's strong font can only helplessly fall on the inexplicable self-criticism book. ....
After another wave of unrest, because my mother is quick to do things, she always earns more money than her peers, so several women are jealous. They colluded with each other, saying that her mother had stolen the corn from the production team, and that she was her accomplice with a runny nose and tears, and she wanted to sue her mother to the brigade. In those black and white years, being a mother was useless. The brigade decided to hold a mother's inquiry meeting. The poor and innocent mother was forced to wear a hat and a sign on her chest by people who didn't know the truth, and was taken to the scene of the trial, where she was tortured and insulted. When she got home at night, she was filled with indignation, but she couldn't cry. In the face of grandma's food, she couldn't swallow it at all, so she went to bed early for fear that grandma would worry. In the middle of the night, her mother got up quietly, went to the river alone, cried bitterly, and then ran down the river slope quickly. She is ready to end this miserable life and be carefree from now on. Thanks to his father's early consciousness, he and his grandmother rushed to the river in time to pull his mother back from the dying line. ......
1979 In the spring, a wave of reform was launched in China. Farmers, the people at the bottom of this society, finally ushered in their first sunshine. The state contracts the land to farmers, so that they can exert their diligence and wisdom, let the dark land grow golden hope, and let the farmers with their backs to the loess eat and wear warm clothes.
Mom and dad finally ushered in another beautiful spring in the middle age of life, like the frozen earth ushered in the first sunshine, like the long-term drought of rice seedlings ushered in the first nectar, dad held back his strength. Together with his mother, he carefully cared for the land contracted to him. Since the first plow in spring ploughing, my parents are busy in the fields during the day, my mother is still doing needlework at night, and my father stays up late reading technical books related to planting. He made up his mind to achieve something, read a set of books, pondered repeatedly, from theory to practice, from books to fields, and never let go of a difficult point. In the first year, the grain sold by our family to the country ranked first in the whole brigade. At the end of the year, my father was rated as a "model worker" in the county. When my father came home with a certificate of commendation, my mother had already prepared a sumptuous dinner waiting for his triumph. A long-lost smile appeared on their faces. There are many things in that smile.
Time flies, the stars move, and we grow up gradually in the ups and downs of the years and under the care of our parents. The elder sister and the second sister are married, and the third and fourth brothers are married. My sister and I are catching up with the tide of working and are busy in the hot factory in the south. Parents have also been upgraded to grandparents. I thought my parents who had gone through vicissitudes would share joys and sorrows and enjoy their old age. However, who would have thought? Third brother, my dear third brother, when the Spring Festival came and the whole family was about to reunite, he was in a car accident and his 29-year-old life was frozen. When the bad news came, my mother fainted several times, but when she woke up, she didn't think about tea and rice, just kept whining. Father endured great grief, gritted his teeth to support, comfort his mother and deal with the aftermath of the third brother. Our sisters look after our third sister-in-law and nephew, and that kind of grief and anxiety is hard to let go. Poor parents, white-haired people send black-haired people, have experienced the greatest pain in life. My parents' white hair seems to increase rapidly overnight, my parents! There are too many hardships in life. ......
After so many years, the smart, educated and connotative father is now a little old man with silver hair and wrinkles, and his mother is an old woman with a sick memory, but the road they have traveled; Suffering; Changes that have been experienced; Beyond the imagination and understanding of young people now. Their love for their children; Deep feelings for the land; Fight against fate silently and accept irresistible disasters in the simplest way. All this will become a family style and pass on silently. Although they are not old, I know they are really old. They need children's care and greetings. They even need children to slow down their hurried pace, spare some time, spend time with them, listen to their nagging and talk about their daily lives. I know, it's time to spend time with my parents, accompany them to the hospital to see a doctor, accompany them to see the scenery outside, chat at home, walk and chat. While my parents are still alive and have a comfortable smile on their faces, I will take time to add a strong color to this smile so that they will not regret it in their later years.