Taigu is an ancient city, the old city accounts for more than half of the whole city, several main streets are still the pattern of ancient times, narrow streets paved with stones, low brick and wood structure houses, the bricks at the root of the wall have been pulverized due to years of wind and rain corrosion, with a hand picking, it will fall off, but just like this, it seems that it does not affect the stability of the main body at all, the wall of the old house is half a meter thick, one by one like a fortress as solid. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 On both sides of the street is the eaves gate of the courtyard house facing the street, every few tens of meters, there will be a towering old-style building, this kind of building is generally two-storey, there are also three-storey, very rare. But now these courtyards, which originally belonged to the rich merchants' families in terms of feng shui yin and yang, have been inhabited by ordinary people who are extremely unparticular about dressing and eating, talking and behaving, and the courtyard is no longer the elegant layout of the courtyard and bamboo, flowers, birds, fish and insects, but instead a pile of black briquettes in the east and west and a small kitchen built with broken bricks and asbestos tiles. I just don't know if the person who built these houses in the first place thought that one day his yard would become the current mess. Several places occupied by government offices, schools, and other institutions are fine, and the old houses are still preserved.

So walking on the old streets of Taigu, especially when you inadvertently turn into an alley, you will have a feeling of traveling back to ancient times, and you will even imagine that an old man who is shaking a drum and selling candy will appear at the end of the alley. Walking in this deep alley, the hustle and bustle outside will be cut off by the deep courtyard wall, which will make you suddenly unable to hear the sound of modern footsteps, if you enter a courtyard at will, step up the wooden narrow and steep stairs, and go up to the small second floor that is also wooden for unmarried rich ladies, it is hard to imagine how the young lady wrapped in a pair of small feet went upstairs and downstairs, by the way, there must be a maid ring to support.

But in the past two years, many modern elements have been introduced into the ancient streets, for example, some people have replaced the old wooden window lattices with aluminum alloy windows, and some people have pasted shiny tiles on the green bricks. Especially this year, the city is full of dust, construction is going on everywhere, several roads have been disemboweled, it is said that heating, natural gas, and gas pipes will be installed, several old houses have been bulldozed down by bulldozers like beasts, and then a big deep pit has been dug in the ground. Is there an elevator?

Lu Tao, who has a small savings, was going to buy a motorcycle before the Chinese New Year, but when I found a sales brochure in his bicycle frame, I muttered to him all day long that I wanted to buy a larger building. At first, Lu Tao disagreed, saying that the money in his hand was not enough to buy a house, and I said to sell the current one-bedroom apartment, and then go to the bank to borrow some money, and change to a three-bedroom apartment, otherwise the children should have their own independent space when they are older, and the parents are also old, maybe they will come to live at home that day, so the house should be bigger. When I showed him the design of the new building on the sales advertisement, he finally gave up the idea of buying a motorcycle, borrowed some money from outside, and added the little money he had saved, and went to the sales office to pay a down payment for a three-bedroom house. In this way, although a few days after paying the down payment on the house, we had a bank loan of 70,000 or 80,000 yuan on our heads, but we felt confident in our hearts, because we saw that our days were getting more and more comfortable, and it was likely that we would be able to have a private car in a few years.

Since the building was topped out when we made the down payment, we received the keys to the new house from the developer around New Year's Day. As soon as we got the key, we contacted the renovation worker and began to decorate the house, Lu Tao wanted to decorate the house in time for the New Year, and he wanted to take his parents over for the New Year. Since the two of us were busy decorating the house, we had less control over Yangyang and his parents, and every day we sent Yangyang to his grandmother as soon as we picked him up from kindergarten, and then we rushed to the new house to check the progress of the renovation and supervise the quality of the decoration, or went back and forth to the decoration materials and furniture market. We bought wood, and the beds and wardrobes were all hand-made by the carpenters, and I think the hand-made furniture is durable and less polluting. The bathroom and kitchen are our focus areas, and we believe that these two spaces are the most important, and the renovation must be done in one step. Of course, Yangyang's small room is also a key project, and it must be made into a children's paradise, full of fairy tales. And what about our master bedroom? Naturally, you have to focus on it, and finally, in a word, the whole family is the focus!

On this day, Lu Tao and I were studying the style of kitchen cabinets in the new house, and my brother-in-law Lu Hai called his brother, saying that my father had gone to the hospital and asked us to go over immediately.

"Why do you need an infusion at night?" After hanging up the phone, Lu Tao muttered.

"Yes, under normal circumstances, my mother takes my father to the infusion in the morning, but if I go so late today, could it be that my father has a cold and fever?" I guess.

Usually, my mother-in-law has to take my father-in-law to the hospital for infusion for a few days every once in a while, but most of the time it is not the doctor's request, it is the mother-in-law who regards herself as a doctor, she thinks that her father-in-law should have an infusion, so she takes him to the infusion, goes to the hospital, and without a doctor's diagnosis, she will say to the doctor: "It's still an old problem, just give it according to the prescription last time!" The doctor is also like a routine, some drugs for high blood pressure or cerebral arteriosclerosis are used by the father-in-law, as for the father-in-law's old problem is high blood pressure or cerebral arteriosclerosis or something else, I have never known. My mother-in-law had never taken her father-in-law to a provincial capital or a larger city to see a doctor, as if she had already diagnosed her father-in-law and did not need more words from other doctors. My mother-in-law's arbitrariness is unacceptable to me, but there is nothing I can do about it. The three Lu Tao brothers and sisters have been obediently obeying their mother's command since they were born, their mother asked them to go there, they went there, and they did whatever their mother told them to do, I have never seen their siblings have a conflict with their parents.

When Lu Tao and I returned to my mother-in-law's house, I heard the second concubine who was guarding the house say that my father-in-law was sitting on a chair watching TV and suddenly fainted before being sent to the hospital, which was not at all the fever due to a cold or conventional infusion as we imagined. The brother-in-law immediately called 120, and then the brother-in-law, sister-in-law and mother-in-law accompanied the father-in-law to the hospital in an ambulance. Lu Tao didn't let me go to the hospital when he left, but let me and my second concubine watch the children at home.

The second concubine's child was still young, so I asked her to bring her own child to sleep, and I slept with Yangyang and Yueyue. When the children fell asleep, I was not asleep, I was waiting for Lu Tao's news, but until 12 o'clock in the evening, I didn't hear him call back, and then I fell asleep.

In the morning, I was woken up by a knock on the door, when I opened the door, the ambulance stopped outside the door again, Lu Tao and the hospital nurse carried down a stretcher from the car, I knew that it was my father-in-law lying on it, and after seeing them carry my father-in-law home, I was a little puzzled and asked Lu Tao: "Can you be discharged from the hospital?" It doesn't matter? However, Lu Tao did not answer my question, only to see tears rolling in his eyes, his eyes looking away, unwilling to look directly at me.

After her father-in-law was carried to the bed, her mother-in-law did not come over, but rummaged through the cabinets looking for something, and after a while, she took out a few costumes-like clothes from the cabinet and asked Lu Tao to put them on for her father-in-law.

"My dad is still here, it's not too late to dress him when he's gone." Lu Tao didn't seem to want to give these colorful and embroidered clothes to his father to wear.

I can recognize that these clothes made of silk are deathbed clothes, can't my father-in-law do it? Thinking of this, I felt numb, I felt that things were too sudden, just when I came back at noon, my father-in-law was still playing checkers with Yangyang, and after only half a day, my father-in-law suddenly announced that he was going to another world?

I glanced at my sister-in-law, who whispered to me, "Brain hemorrhage, the doctor wanted to open the craniotomy, but my mother didn't let me, so I pulled it back." ”

"Why not salvage? Why not have surgery? I asked, puzzled.

Although my voice was very low, I was still heard by my mother-in-law, no, maybe my puzzled expression and eyes were seen through by my mother-in-law, and her old man said decisively like a great wise man who knew the heavens and the earth: "What kind of skull?" Leave a whole corpse when you die, otherwise what will it look like when you get over there? ”

Oh, I see, the reason why my mother-in-law didn't let the doctor disclose her skull to her husband was because she was worried that her father-in-law would not have a good image when he arrived in another world.

Although I thought that I should do my best to save people, my mother-in-law thought that if there was little hope of survival, it would be better to let him leave quietly. Maybe the mother-in-law is right, sometimes when you use a whole bunch of medical equipment against a person who doesn't want to stay, it may not be to save him, but only to satisfy a perfect desire of some people without regrets, otherwise they will blame themselves and think that they are not doing their best, and they rarely think that such efforts are not what every patient wants. Probably my mother-in-law thought of it, because she knew her husband best. As for whether my father-in-law wants to try to stay in this world, or whether he wants to calmly go to another world to wait for his mother-in-law, I don't know.

Two hours after my father-in-law was sent back, he stopped breathing and his heartbeat and left no last words. At that time, the sister-in-law pounced on her father and cried loudly in a high octave tone, crying heartbreakingly, but as soon as she expressed her father's last big scene, she was frightened by her mother-in-law, who didn't let anyone cry, saying that her father-in-law had gone to Elysium, and it was not a sad thing, and she was not allowed to cry! She brought the wooden fish and asked us to knock on the wooden fish mouth and recite Ah Mi Buddha for my father-in-law, so as to escort him to the other world smoothly.

The next day, a large number of relatives and friends who were mourning came, including my father-in-law's sister, that is, Lu Tao's aunt. As the aunt of the bereaved owner, seeing that we did not even have a white thread on our children's bodies, she was not satisfied at the moment, so she sent someone to buy a few zhang of white cotton cloth on the street, and she divided the white cloth into several large pieces three times and two times, and used her mother-in-law's sewing machine to rail a few on it, so that we each took a piece and put it on our bodies, and let us wrap it in a small piece of white cloth on our heads. According to the custom, if you wear a big filial piety robe, you should invite a wind band to play mourning music, and the filial sons kneel in front of the mourning hall to keep a watch, but the mother-in-law did not let the traditional folk band be invited, but invited a few monks. As a result, the courtyard of the in-law's house presents such a scene to outsiders: filial sons dressed in white and monks dressed in yellow sit together and chant Buddha, just like the ancient houses with tiles on the street, in a state of mixing and matching.

After Yangyang got up, he saw that so many people suddenly came to the house, and saw that I had changed my outfit, and felt very lively, and asked me happily: "Mom, what is the festival today?" ”

I quickly covered his mouth and whispered to him, "Grandpa has passed away!" ”

"What does it mean to die?" Yang Yang asked.

"To die is to die." I'll just say it, otherwise I won't be able to explain the current situation to him.

I don't want Lu Tao to be unhappy when he hears my words, he won't let me say the word "death", saying that it is unlucky, I asked how to say it to the child? Let's just say that grandpa is asleep, he said so. Asleep? What if Yangyang wants to find his grandfather the next day? said that he went out, and Lu Tao said again. At this time, I couldn't argue with Lu Tao, according to his explanation, I changed my mouth to Yangyang and said that grandpa was asleep, and I didn't want Yangyang to run to grandpa's bedside, and wanted to wake up grandpa, which frightened me and grabbed him.

"Can't you take care of the child?" My mother-in-law glared at me and reprimanded me.

"Quick, Yangyang, come over here." I tried to pull Yang Yang away, but Yang Yang didn't go, I had to wake up my grandfather, but I had no choice but to put my mouth on his ear and whisper again: "Grandpa is dead, and I can't wake up again." ”

"Like the little rabbit I died the other day, never to come back?" Yang Yang said. Not long ago, he had to raise a rabbit, so he bought him one, not wanting to die after just a few days, for which he cried for several days.

"Yes, people die when they get old, there is no way." I pulled him into a corner and continued to explain to him.

"Will Mom die too?" Yang Yang asked.

"Yes, but that's many years later, and Mom won't die until you're old." That's all I can say, though I don't know how old I am.

"You're not going to die until I'm old?" Yang Yang checked again.

"Yes, Mommy will be with you for a long time." I comforted him, only worried that death would make Yang Yang pessimistic and frightened.

"That's good." Yang Yang only said these three words, looking thoughtful.

"And Dad, aunt, uncle, Yueyue, Kaikai, all the people in this world are with you, there are a lot of people, there are so many!" I opened my arms and made a wide range of movements, trying to make him understand that there would be hundreds of millions of people living with him on this earth, and that he would not be lonely in his life.

"But I still don't want my mother to die." Yang Yang said, putting his arm around my neck.

"Don't worry, your mother will protect her body, live for hundreds of years, and always be with you." I kissed Yang Yang and said.

"How can you live to be hundreds of years old?" Yang Yang asked.

"You can live for hundreds of years without eating junk food, and you can live longer by eating as little as possible such as drinks and shrimp crackers." I say.

"Then grandpa ate junk food?" Yang Yang asked with wide eyes.

"Yes, grandpa ate a lot of junk food when he was a child, and grandpa also smoked, so he didn't live to be 100 years old, but grandpa is 80 years old, which is also a big age." I said as I gestured with my thumb and forefinger in a figure of eight.

"Mom, if you add some blood to your grandfather, you will let him live, the people in the game are like this, as soon as you add blood, you will live." Yang Yang suddenly came up with an idea to come back from the dead.

"No, grandpa can't survive with blood." I say.

"Because he has junk food in his stomach?" Yang Yang said.

"Yes!"

"Then I won't dare to eat junk food in the future."

"Good!"

Good fellow, this little thing has finally accepted the death of his grandfather.

Until the cremation of the father-in-law, Yangyang did not shed a single tear, because he was still too young and not sensible. But I insisted on taking Yangyang to the funeral home with the hearse, and I thought that as the eldest grandson, he should attend his grandfather's funeral. And on the day her father-in-law died, the sister-in-law sent Yueyue back to his grandmother's house, saying that she was afraid of being tainted with ghosts.

The saddest thing was Lu Tao, who couldn't turn his mood around for several days, and muttered with tears in his eyes all day long: "Are you still going to let my dad come to our new house for the New Year?" It seems that he does not have this blessing! (To be continued.) )