My elder sister is nine years older than me. She has always been partial to me since she was a child. She is the oldest in the family. In difficult times, the important task of distributing food to several siblings was handed over to her elder sister. She always gives me extra points intentionally or unintentionally, which makes my eldest brother often cry for it: "The elder sister is towards the second brother."
My sister got married at the age of eighteen, and my brother-in-law was the old Eighth Route Army during the Anti-Japanese War, and later became a military doctor in the army. 1956, the brother-in-law was sent back to China from the volunteer station in Korea. Nominally, I went to a crash school to catch up with culture. To put it bluntly, it is to let these single officers over the age of 30 return to China to find a partner. Through the matchmaker, my brother-in-law took a fancy to my sister. My parents met their future son-in-law, honest and clean, and they were quite satisfied. After marriage, her brother-in-law who is ten years older than her sister is very kind to her. After the honeymoon, my brother-in-law returned to North Korea alone, and my sister and brother-in-law lived a life of cowherd and weaver girl.
Before getting married, my sister worked as a spinning girl in Yangzhou cotton mill. After marriage, the elder sister gave birth to four children, two men and two women. After the brother-in-law had the conditions for his family to join the army, the elder sister quit her job and moved to Gansu in the northwest with her children. Since then, my sister has been getting farther and farther away from us. 1966, brother-in-law changed jobs from the army. Introverted, he didn't want to stay in the capital of Anhui Province, but insisted on his old job and became a doctor in Tunxi Geological Team of Anhui Province.
My sister's family has since settled in Tunxi, Anhui Province (Huangshan City). After I transferred to Beijing, I was farther away from my sister. However, the feeling of brother and sister between me and my sister is still deeply in my memory. My sister often misses me, too. As soon as she heard that we were going back to our hometown to visit relatives, she immediately rushed from Huangshan to Yangzhou, where my brothers and sisters gathered for a while, and then she returned to Huangshan after we left. My sister lived in Huangshan for forty-eight years. Later, her youngest son, after graduating from graduate school, stayed in Beijing and became a family. My sister and brother-in-law also had the opportunity to come to Beijing to meet us, but it took several years to meet.
Ten years ago, my brother-in-law suddenly got a strange disease and threw up all over. He visited several hospitals in Huangshan and Yangzhou, but couldn't find the cause, and finally arrived in Beijing. Daughter-in-law lets her parents stay in a hotel on the pretext that the house is too crowded. My sister was very unhappy when she saw that her daughter-in-law was afraid of her brother-in-law's infectious disease. She turned her head and went to my house. My sister told us what happened, and we were not afraid of anything. We made the big bed free, let my sister and I sleep, and we slept on the sofa.
After examination by Union Medical College Hospital, my brother-in-law has the problem of bile duct obstruction. He'll be fine after a minimally invasive operation.
My brother-in-law died at the age of 80, and my sister was old and thin. She lived alone in Huangshan and wanted to have children, so she went to several children's homes for a few days. In recent years, the little daughter-in-law has been working in Shanghai, and the older sister is distressed by her younger son. Every winter, she goes to Beijing to stay with her youngest son for several months and cook for him every day. Come and see us by bus every once in a while. Brothers and sisters are naturally very happy when they meet, and there are always endless words.
Last year, I moved to the suburbs of Beijing, and my sister was in the city, separated by dozens of kilometers, so it was inconvenient to travel. One day last winter, my sister and mother drove to find us. Seeing the blue sky and green water here, I immediately discussed with my son and simply rented a room here and became our neighbor. My nephew also agreed, immediately found an intermediary and chose a two-bedroom apartment in the building next to our house. Two days later, my sister and son moved out of the city.
We are very happy. Now, my sister and I, the six brothers and sisters who were the farthest together, are only twenty or thirty meters apart and become the nearest neighbors who can meet every day. When I told the news to my brothers and sisters in my hometown, they were all surprised that we became the closest neighbors.
Since then, my sister has become a VIP in our family. We cooked delicious food and invited her mother and son to have dinner together. During the holiday, my daughter came from the city. The two families drove two cars, went to nearby scenic spots, dug shepherd's purse in the wild, went shopping in the nearby supermarket, went to the country market, chatted and watched TV together. Yesterday, my wife went to town to buy a cashmere sweater and scarf for my sister as a New Year gift, and my sister also bought a bunch of dried fruits for us to eat for the New Year. At this moment, I seem to have returned to my childhood, and the scene of my sister loving me and loving me reappeared in front of my eyes.
It feels so good that our elder sister who lives far away has become our close neighbor!