One weekend in the autumn of 1993, at dusk, the autumn wind was gusting and the yellow dust was flying, and I was carrying the admission letter of the county high school in my school bag, braving the red sun, pedaling my bicycle, crossing the winding country roads with green gauze tents on both sides, and rushing back to the village from the middle school in the town.

When I arrived at the entrance of the village, I saw my short and thin mother standing on the side of the road waiting for me to come home, the red sunset shining on her body, and her figure was painted in a bright red color.

Walking into the door, my mother saw my rushing appearance and said angrily, "You slow down, panicked, why are you so happy today?" ”

"I won the second prize in the county in the five-subject competition and was admitted to the county high school!" I said to her excitedly.

My mother was also very happy and asked, "That is, you also did well in the exam?" Isn't it the same as your uncle's uncle? ”

I was tired and thirsty, rushed to the house, took a scoop and scooped half a scoop of water from the water tank into my mouth, wiped the sweat from my forehead, and replied, "No, he was admitted to the secondary school, unlike me." ”

"Different?" The mother's face was a little dazed.

"Yes, it's different, our homeroom teacher told me that the high school I took was the best high school in the county, and I would be admitted to university in the future."

"Going to college? Didn't your uncle go to college? It is said that after graduation, you can be assigned to the railway, which is an iron rice bowl. ”

Listening to me say that the admission is different from my uncle, my mother is a little disappointed in her words.

The uncle's family has prestige in the village because of his family's three sons, the eldest is a college student, and the second is a chef in the provincial capital, and the family is relatively well-off.

My uncle's uncle is two terms older than me, and we have been together from the primary school in the village to the middle school in the town, but he is tall and big, with thick hands and feet, prominent cheekbones, thick eyebrows and small eyes, and his grades have always been very good, and he has always been the class president from elementary school to middle school.

In order to provide me with education, my father worked at a construction site in the city all the year round, and my mother was busy at home alone.

Due to malnutrition, I am very weak, but my bones are rough, I have a good academic performance, and I have always been a student in the class, because I am silent, well-behaved, and diligent in studying, I have always been very popular with teachers from elementary school to junior high school.

Since my uncle and I have been studying together, and he has often received various praises and awards from the school, he is recognized as a good student, so my mother especially likes to compare me with my uncle, maybe in her opinion, she has never been to school, if I can achieve the same results as my uncle, especially in the matter of admission, if I am the same as him, it will be considered very successful.

My mother asked me about the difference between my high school admission letter and my uncle's secondary school admission letter two years ago.

I was a little impatient and explained: "I'm different from my uncle, I still have to go to high school for three years, and if I take the college entrance examination, he doesn't have to take the exam again, and after finishing the secondary school, that is, he will join the job after graduating in another year." ”

After listening to my explanation, my mother was a little unhappy, and the expression on her face changed from dazed to sad.

"You're going to read for many more years? In other words, it's not as good as your uncle's test? How many more years does your dad have to send you to school? He can't go home to take care of you, I can't take care of you, this kid, I don't discuss it with my family when I volunteer, alas, -----."

She sighed, turned around and went to the kitchen to prepare something for me to eat, looking at her lonely and departing thin back, my heart suddenly felt like a needle pricked. After a few years, I gradually understood that this feeling should be a kind of sympathy for my lack of communication with my parents, my contempt for their opinions, the guilt for my own behavior, and the helplessness I expressed for my mother.

Yes, I chose to go to high school without telling my parents in advance, I always felt that they didn't understand academic things, and this kind of arbitrariness was too selfish?

I know the current situation of poverty in my family, and I have not thought too much about the burden of choosing to go to high school, and I have not thought too much about it.

In fact, looking back now, even if my parents didn't understand such a big matter as the academic arrangement at the time, I should have listened to their opinions.

I have always been not good at expressing my feelings to my parents, and this situation has also continued into my emotional life, sometimes the huge contrast between the superficial indifference and the inner emotion boiling caused by various mutual misunderstandings and gaps in reality, often tormenting me to sleep at night.

I often regret what I said or didn't do, and because I lost the ideal communication effect I wanted to achieve, my father was away all the year round, and only came back at the end of the year, spent a few days with his family, and left in a hurry on the first day of the first month. My mother was home alone and I was boarding at school, and now I can imagine her toil and loneliness.

I think that helpless sigh back then was mostly because I was going to high school, and the reunion day between her and her father was infinitely postponed.

"Is it the return of the great powers?" Grandpa's trembling voice came from outside the hospital.

I walked out, and sure enough, I saw my grandfather standing outside the stone wall of the courtyard with a cane, "Grandpa, can you come to the house to talk?" ”。

He didn't respond to me, and glanced at me, "Why are you so skinny, did you just get home?" ”

"Yes, Grandpa, slow down," I walked over and grabbed one of his arms.

The old man is tall, but due to years of cerebral infarction and lack of timely treatment, one leg is not dexterous, and he has to rely on crutches to walk.

My grandfather turned out to be the village party secretary, but also a junior high school student before the liberation, in the village belongs to the people who have seen the world in general, according to legend, grandpa was a landlord, very domineering, and the neighbors are more harsh, after the liberation, my grandfather was the first to call on the whole village to fight him down, and and grandpa to draw a clear line, as a result, because of high political consciousness, radical thinking, decisiveness, fairness, he has been respected by the whole village, was a character who said the same.

Grandpa's national character face, he also looks dignified, and he once had unlimited scenery in the village. In recent years, when he is old, he first has intestinal hernia, then cerebral infarction, and has been ill for more than ten years, coupled with the decline of his family, his temper has become more and more eccentric from the original little rigid.

The relationship between my grandfather and me has always been strained, and I still can't say why, maybe it's because I'm the eldest grandson that I haven't been able to achieve his ideal excellence.

He didn't go into the back room, but sat on the stone steps of the date palm tree in the courtyard, panting, staring at me. "Have you finished the test?"

"Yes, grandpa, after the exam, I was admitted to No. 1 Middle School, and I have to study in high school for three years."

He lowered his head, was silent for a moment, and looked up at me.

"Stop studying, go back to the village to herd sheep." There is a tone in the grandfather's tone that cannot be refuted, "You can't eat when you go to school, and you are not too young, it is time to marry a daughter-in-law."

"Grandpa, I want to go to school and go to university."

"You're not that material, no one in our family has been admitted to college for so many years, besides, what's the use of you being admitted to college? Come home, don't go to school. ”

He got a little angry and raised his voice.

"Come back to herd sheep, marry a daughter-in-law, and live honestly."

"Grandpa, I have to go to school."

"No, don't go to school, it's useless to get in."

"When you go to school, your dad has to work all the time and can't go home."

Hearing the argument between our two men in the yard, my mother came out of the kitchen and gave me a look, "Big country, come here, go to the mountains and mow the grass for the sheep."

Although my mother does not understand the difference between high school and technical secondary school, she has always been unconditional support for my study, no matter what my choice is, as long as I continue to study, she thinks I am right. My father and she agreed on this, so in order to provide for my schooling, my father has been working tirelessly, working everywhere, and relying on a meager salary for me to study.

I understood that my mother was helping me out, and following her eyes, under my grandfather's stern gaze, I panicked on the fence in the yard, took off the sickle, answered the call, and ran away quickly.

"When I go to school, I know that going to school is not foreign, not dirty, and his father can't come back, the family is not a family, can't the family be reunited?"

Behind him, grandpa's muttering. "The boss is not small, and he doesn't understand anything at all!"

Many years have passed, and my ears often ring the reprimand of my grandfather sitting in the yard, "The boss is not small, he doesn't understand anything at all", it often whips me, makes me introspect, try to find my own shortcomings, and strive to become a sensible person.

A few days before my grandfather passed away, I went through all kinds of hardships and finally fulfilled my college dream, and I was already a sophomore. Together with many relatives, he returned to his hometown to guard him, he was lying on the hospital bed, dying, tormented by the pain of the skinny, at that time, the family was still poor; The night before Grandpa died, the weather was unusually cold.

In the cold winter, late at night, the family gathered around his bed, knowing that his time was running out, the atmosphere in the room was solemn and solemn, his eye sockets were deep, staring at me with a sad expression in student clothes, and his eyes were sharp, "Big country, I'm so uncomfortable, you go to the clinic to buy me medicine!" I didn't dare to disobey, so I immediately rode a motorcycle with my uncle, along the winding country road to the clinic ten kilometers away to buy him painkillers, I sat on the back seat of my uncle's motorcycle, thinking about the good and bad of my grandfather for so many years, tears kept flowing, and my cheeks were yellowed by the dust raised by the biting cold wind and the speeding motorcycle.

After drinking the painkillers I bought, my grandfather was sick for half the night, and at dawn, he was still gone.

Before leaving, my grandfather grabbed my hand and stared at me, "Big country, be obedient, stop studying, come back to herd sheep, and be with your family." ”

I still couldn't follow his old man's last wish, and after graduating from university, I said goodbye to my homeland deep in the mountains and wandered alone on the edge of the city.

Sometimes, in the dead of night, when I am alone, I think of various life circumstances, and then I think of the stubborn face of the country and the words of death, and I will never be sentimental, and I will cry like rain.

Whether it is family affection or love, it is often easy to be ignored or even forgotten in the materialistic world.

But once people return to their senses and re-examine the reality, this feeling of being a world away but close to them will make people feel like they are stuck in their throats.

After all, lost emotions are the most precious thing, and they cannot be remedied with any value.