Chapter 51: Father

My mother was born in a poor peasant family before liberation, with four brothers and sisters, and relied on her grandfather to carry long-term jobs for landlords and work for them to make ends meet.

Due to the pressure of life, my brother became an apprentice to someone else when he was more than ten years old.

The younger brother was arrested by the Kuomintang and escaped from the tiger's mouth after half a year.

When my sister was ten years old, she became a child bride for others.

The family lived in dire straits, suffered from the exploitation and oppression of the landlord's old wealth, and lived a miserable life that was inferior to cattle and horses.

Due to the cruelty of feudal forces, a pair of small feet can hardly support the mother's body, and she walks with a sway, weak and windy.

The mother was slender, virtuous and dignified, and married her father at the age of sixteen.

In my memory, my mother was hardworking, kind, and amiable.

I was born less than 3 pounds, I can be described as skinny, not humanoid, and there is no hope of survival in people's minds. I can't withstand any twists and turns, and a few negligence will take my life, but it is my mother who works hard all night, tirelessly, and has a handful of and urine to save my life.

When I was very young, my mother took great care of me, and every time the festival and relatives arrived, my mother always tried to keep me some good food. From 1958 to 1959, when I was eating in the cafeteria, my mother always picked and picked the very few noodles that came back from the canteen and put them into my small wooden bowl.

At that time, because of the difficulties of life, I could not eat enough, most people suffered from edema, and starvation happened from time to time, but it was my mother who raised and took care of me with her great heart, and I was left from the line of death.

When I was a child, the weather was cold and frozen, and the dripping water turned into ice, and the ice glass hung under the eaves was more than 3 feet long. I and a few friends played with ice on the surface of the Nuwa River, the ice cracked and fell into the water, soaking wet, and ran home, it was my mother who took me into her arms and injected vitality into me with her body, so as to avoid an unjustified disaster.

I remember in 1960, when I was five years old, my parents went to work in the field, and after a tiring day, they had to grind and grind the dough when they came home from work.

Whenever the weather was cold, my mother never let me get up early, and always brought the steaming sweet potato wedges to my bed for me to eat.

When I was in elementary school, whenever I went to school, my mother always kept nagging, lest I would cause other troubles if she wasn't around. When school was about to end, my mother always cooked a meal and stood by the door, hoping that her son would return early. When I didn't get home, she never took a bite no matter how hungry she was.

On the eve of liberation, her parents were frugal, day and night, working hard for half a life, and managed a few acres of thin fields.

Every morning, I have to pick up the cypress tips (buckets) and go to the village head well hundreds of steps away to carry water (the only well in the village) at a time, and fill the grass tank and household water tank with water at a time, back and forth more than ten times, and then clean the manure laid by the livestock, put dry soil on the mat, and after feeding the animals early, then go to cook, day after day, year after year, never stop, and take care of six children.

After the liberation, he joined the People's Commune, and his mother took the lead in digging rivers, digging wells, and fighting in large regiments, regardless of her small feet, and never slackened off in adding bricks and tiles to the cause of socialism.

During the three-year natural disaster, for the survival of the whole family, my mother dragged her tired body and went out to the wilderness for dozens of miles to dig thatch roots to satisfy her hunger.

For the sake of the child, she got up at dusk, picked bark, dug wild vegetables, and survived the three-year famine, and the whole family was able to escape death under the care of her mother.

While taking care of the family, my mother also had to take care of my frail grandfather, who was often sending warmth and pocket money to save money.

Mother is loyal and kind, endured humiliation and burden, in her heart is full of "harmony is precious, forbearance is high" of the lofty mind, never care about big and small things, and has never blushed with others in her life.

Mother has a cheerful temperament all her life, loves to talk and laugh, and many troubles are smoothed out in laughter.

When I am happy in my spare time, I often talk about the Henan opera "Nanyang Pass", "Copy Red" and "Three Crying Palace", which sounds like a board and an eye, and it is three points into the play. As long as I hear my mother singing, I can't help but come to her and won't stop singing until I need to go to school or go to sleep.

The sun and the moon are like shuttles, the light is like arrows, the children are older, and the mother gradually has gray hair on her head, and she is heartbroken for the marriage of her children, and she is tired and bent over.

After the children got married, the years dyed their mother's silver hair white, and she was haggard and aging, but she still did not forget to share her worries and sorrows for her children, and the children's big and small things were always on her heart.

The years crippled her mother from a young girl to the age of the cane, and finally couldn't bear the torture of the years and fell ill.

After being ill for several months and unable to take care of himself, his children have always been by his side, guarding day and night, serving tea and feeding medicine, and doing his best.

When my mother was seriously ill, it was very strange, and in the last ten days, no one could feed her, and only when I came back from the county town and fed her, I would eat.

One morning, we were talking to our mother, and my mother suddenly sat up and asked our sisters and brothers to help her to the chair outside the door to bask in the sun, with a bright smile on her face, talking and laughing with us, everyone was very happy, thinking that her mother was getting better, but unexpectedly it was a return to the light. In the evening, my mother lay in bed and could no longer speak, and she finished her rough life.

He was 82 years old.

Mother, pay silently for us, never ask. With a selfless mind, we hold up a blue sky. That gentle, kind, and haggard figure will always live in my heart.