I was born in the most hungry and difficult times. At that time, food was the most urgent and precious thing for people, but it was food that was most scarce in both cities and villages. People are always hungry, hungry every day, and they have to work and work non-stop. Severe nutritional deficiencies devastate everyone's body and test everyone's life. According to my grandmother, I was born under these circumstances. My mother struggled through the ten months of pregnancy, and gave birth to me with her life, but I fainted, no matter how I cried and struggled beside me, my mother knew nothing and did not move. This frightened everyone present, and the grandmother, father, and midwife shouted and slapped at the mother, but the mother still did not open her eyes and move. The midwife tried that her mother's nostrils were still breathing, and she said that she had exerted too much force, too long, fainted, and needed to eat something to replenish her strength. There was nothing to eat at home, so my grandmother had to run to the cafeteria and beg the cooks to ask for a bowl of hot noodle soup for my mother to pour in, and she slowly woke up.

Although the person was saved, his body was too weak to move, and a week had passed, and his mother still could not get out of bed and walk. There was not a drop of milk. I was so hungry that I cried. The mother felt sorry for her daughter, and she was so anxious that she tossed and turned tears but there was nothing she could do. The father reluctantly sold the two ancestral solid wood chairs, exchanged them for more than a dozen yuan, and asked the doctor to prescribe a few flavors of Chinese medicine for the mother to drink, but it was also ineffective; When I went to prescribe medicine again, the doctor said that it was useless to take medicine, and she was hungry. If you find a way to give her more food, and get some fresh things to eat, you may have milk.

When my father came back, he stumped the whole family. What is there to eat at the moment? In the cafeteria, each person has a wooden scoop of porridge soup that shows the figure of a person, and there is nothing else. Fresh things are even more scarce, these years, private people are not allowed to raise pigs, chickens, and even dogs are not allowed to raise, in addition to people at home are flies and mosquitoes, how can there be any fresh things to eat? Money can buy medicine, but not food. Food is the treasure of treasures is no longer an adjective, and it is not an exaggeration at all; For those who are dying of hunger, a grain of rice can save lives, but gold and jewelry have no effect.

In order to give my mother more to eat, my father and grandmother each saved half a bowl of porridge soup for my mother. The mother would not eat more, because if she ate more, the father and grandmother would not be able to eat enough; But for the sake of the child, under the persuasion of her father and grandmother, she still ate the thin noodle soup left by her father and grandmother with tears. However, there is still no milk. My mother had no choice but to drink the porridge soup from the cafeteria, and grind the thick underside into porridge to feed me. But how much nutrition can there be? After half a month, I was so hungry that I couldn't open my eyes, and even the crying voice became weaker and weaker, and I was really dying. The child was the flesh that fell from my mother's body, and my mother was so sad that she hugged me and cried bitterly.

The father was in a hurry, and he could no longer take care of his weak body, and after some thought, he decided to go down to the river to catch fish and mussels and feed his mother. - There are no fresh things at home, and you can't buy them in the market, but there are still in the river and in the sky. The cadres can only control the people in the village, but they cannot control the animals in the sky and water. It's just that people who are hungry and cold and emaciated are too difficult to catch animals that are still healthy and good at swimming and flying.

The river was still cold in April, and there was no food in his stomach, so every time my father went down into the river, he shivered with cold, his face turned blue, and his teeth rattled. How he wanted to catch a few live fish for his daughter to feed, even if it was a few small fish and shrimp; But the fish and shrimp were much more agile and robust than him, and he did not catch a single one after freezing in the river for a long time. It seems that there is little hope of catching fish and shrimp. As a last resort, he had to pin his hopes on the snails, because they inhabit the bottom of the water and rarely swim. He rolled up his sleeves, stretched his hands to the bottom of the water again and again, fished them up one by one and put them in his pocket, and finally fished out a dozen snails in one morning. The whole family was overjoyed. Although snails are not fish and shrimp, they are also living creatures after all, they are fresh, and they are good for milk. My grandmother washed and shelled a dozen snail mussels, cooked soup for my mother to drink, and sometimes added some fresh soup to porridge for me to drink. After drinking like this a few times, a miracle happened, and my mother really had some milk, but not much. My father was very happy and strengthened his determination to go down to the river to catch snails. With the snail mussels that my father fished to eat, my mother's milk gradually increased, and I opened my eyes and gradually became refreshed.

However, my father's body was even weaker, his limbs were weak, and he had to rest once or twice from the house to the river, just for the sake of the child, he desperately persevered. Grandma and mother felt sorry for his father and advised him to go less often. The father didn't listen and said, "What else can I use to milk the child besides fishing for some snails?" Without milk, the child is afraid that he will not be able to feed him. "That's true. Grandma and mother thought about it seriously, and it was inconvenient to persuade them again. My father still insisted on going down to the river every day to catch snails. Finally, one time, my father went down to the river to catch snails and never came back - he drowned in the river!

When my mother and grandmother heard the news, they were so grief-stricken that they immediately left me and ran to the river. When they saw their father stiff by the river, his eyes closed, his face was blue, his clothes and hair were covered with mud and weeds, dripping with water, he was already out of breath, and he was still holding a few snails tightly in his hands, and they couldn't help but cry like a fountain of tears.

Yes! Father, just for a few snails, in order to be able to milk his thin wife to feed his dying daughter, he did not hesitate to pay for his young life without hesitation! Is it worth it to leave behind a young wife and an elderly mother? Perhaps he was only thinking about saving his daughter and nothing else, including himself, his wife and his mother. His deeds are not great at all, even a little selfish, there is nothing worth proclaiming, but it is the expression of a father's most sincere love for his daughter, the purest feelings of life, which is equally touching.

The cries of the mother and grandmother were earth-shattering, dead and alive, touching and heartfelt, and attracted many neighbors for a while. Everyone heard that the father drowned in order to catch snails to milk the child, and they were very moved and very sorry: the life of a young man who was only twenty-three years old ended like this, pitiful, pity! Seeing the tragic situation of my mother and grandmother sitting around my father's corpse crying and grabbing the ground, everyone was very sympathetic and very sad, and some tender and sentimental women actually shed tears; So everyone didn't care about their own thin and weak bodies, and they all started to help carry their father's body home.

Grandma brought a basin of water, dipped it in a wet towel, and wiped the mud on my father's head, face, and body little by little, shedding tears while muttering to herself: "There is so much sludge all over my body, how long will it take to struggle!" If someone had pulled him up, he might have climbed up; Why isn't there anyone around? Is this providential, or is it human? "It's so deep that no one knows about it, and no one can tell her. Grandma couldn't find an answer and burst into tears again. How sad and sad it must be for a white-haired person to send a black-haired person!

My mother held me and cried for a whole day and a night as I guarded my father's body, saying that my father's death was all for her, and that she killed my father. When the villagers saw their mother crying pitifully, they persuaded her together: "In the final analysis, he is for the child." Now that he is gone, a thousand pounds of weight have fallen on you; For the sake of the child, you can't cry like this anymore, if you have three long and two short, this child really can't do anything! The child's father's hard work was in vain! The villagers persuaded her again and again, and my mother barely stopped crying and helped my grandmother take care of my father's funeral.

My father was going to the funeral, but there was no coffin - how could he think of dying and making a coffin in advance at such a young age? The family couldn't afford it for a while, so they had to occupy grandma's coffin. Grandma cried and said, "This coffin was for me to sleep on, but I didn't think that I hadn't slept yet, but my son went to sleep first." Oh my God! Wake him up and live a good life with his wife and children; Let me, a useless man, die for him." "However, how is this possible? There are no young and old people on the Huangquan Road, and no matter who dies, they cannot be resurrected.

My father was about to be buried, but he couldn't find anyone to carry the coffin—everyone was so hungry that they couldn't walk, how could they carry such a heavy coffin? Grandma just cried, there was nothing she could do. The mother was in a hurry, so she found a cart from the village, went to the cow house and led the cow, crying and kneeling and begging the neighbors to help get the coffin on the cart, so that the cow could be pulled to the cemetery; Then, after several twists and turns, he pushed the coffin off the cart, pushed the tomb into the grave, dug some soil on the spot to cover the coffin, piled up a small grave, and buried my father hastily. After the grave was piled up, the mother and grandmother sat on their knees in front of the grave and cried and shouted until they collapsed in front of the grave without crying sound. But no matter how much they cried and cried, and worked desperately, their father could no longer hear and could not come back.

At that time, my mother was only twenty-one years old, just in the prime of her youth. Many people persuaded her: How will you live in the future with this old and young? The old ones are getting older and older, the younger ones are girls, and the last ones are people's families, who will you rely on in the future? The mother said with tears in her eyes: "In order to feed this child, her father has lost his life, how can I leave her alone?" Besides, if I leave the child to her grandmother, the child can't be raised, and then I take an old life, am I not creating evil? When I go to hell, her father won't spare me. "My mother resolutely stayed and worked hard to support the old and the young.

But for many years to come, the peasants still couldn't get enough to eat, and my mother and grandmother saved a bite and I saved a bite to feed me together. I can finally walk, and I can call "Mommy, Grandma". Both mother-in-law and daughter-in-law had some smiles on their faces. Usually, my mother works in the fields, and my grandmother takes me to do housework at home, and the family of three has a hard time getting by.

However, my grandmother's health became worse and worse, and she coughed and wheezed incessantly in winter and spring, and finally died at the age of 56 when I was three years old due to old age and infirmity, the pain of losing a child, and lack of nutrition. The old man is middle-aged and widowed, and he loses his son when he is old, and his life is really bitter! After the death of her son, she accompanied the young widow and daughter-in-law to live a difficult life for another three years, comforting her and supporting her granddaughter. When she was dying, she grabbed her daughter-in-law's hand and gasped and said, "Pull Xiuyun (my name) up, she is your only support!" After speaking, he looked directly at his mother, but he couldn't speak. The mother nodded earnestly, which was regarded as a promise to her mother-in-law on her deathbed, so that the grandmother closed her eyes.

Grandma died without a coffin - her coffin was slept in by her father. What to do? Dead like so many poor people nowadays, swept with reeds? The mother couldn't bear it, because the mother-in-law was really a good person and a hard-working person, and she did her best for her and her daughter, she sympathized with her, admired her, and felt that she must be worthy of her. The mother desperately dug up the three big trees in front of the house and behind the house alone, and asked the carpenter to make a better coffin and bury the grandmother. But I can't afford to hire someone to carry the coffin, this time it's not because people are too thin to be able to do it, but because they can't afford to entertain people to eat. She knew that the mother and daughter would live on this little food in the urn this year, and they would not be able to live after spending this year. If you can't afford to ask for someone, you can only suffer yourself. So my mother also learned how to bury my father, went to the cow house and brought a cow, pulled my grandmother's coffin to the cemetery, dug a hole next to my grandfather's grave, pushed the coffin into the grave with all her might, covered it with soil, and buried my grandmother. Father-in-law and mother-in-law were finally buried together, she did her filial piety on behalf of her husband, and also ended a matter of her own heart, although she knelt in front of the grave and cried, and gasped for a long time, but her heart felt a little comforted.