That mountain, that water, that parents who are drifting away

When I was nineteen years old, I came to the provincial city by car from the depths of Xuefeng Mountain to study, and at that time, like a chick flying out of the nest, I always wanted to leave my hometown as soon as possible and go to a farther place to see.

What I did not expect was that in fact, this walk, seemingly dashing, was a permanent separation from my hometown. From the exhaust of the city at that time, to the slow habit of getting used to the traffic during the rush hour.

Twenty-one years, I have become familiar with the city I live in now, but also let me finally lost in the lights of the big city, although I always miss the small river under the snow peak mountain and the early morning birdsong, but the honesty of the heart tells me that far away from my hometown, not only my body is actually my soul that has nowhere to rest.

When I first arrived in Changsha, every holiday, I always liked to sit silently in a corner of the school, missing my parents in my hometown, as if I could abandon everything and immediately return to the hometown I wanted.

At that time, I was still an innocent teenager, constantly missing my hometown, and even had the idea of building my hometown after studying. These thoughts and thoughts, as I worked in the city, married a wife, and had children, slowly became more and more distant, as if there was a gap between me and my hometown at some point.

I began to learn to make a scene, and I began to speak insincerely, disagreeing with it but also smiling. Perhaps, this is the price that a person must pay to grow. Perhaps, like many people, I have become the last thing I want to see.

Fortunately, in the Internet age, it is no longer as inconvenient to communicate as when we were in school, and we can often chat with our parents on the phone and talk about our hearts.

A word from my mother on the phone made me miss my hometown even more, and I had the urge to give up my work and return to my hometown.

The mother said on the phone that she was 65 years old and that she would only live for 15 years if she lived to be 80.

My mother's words left me speechless, and I didn't even know how to answer and comfort her. In my heart, I never felt that my mother was old, I always felt that my mother had always been in her 30s, and every time I came back to my mother, I felt that I was still the teenager who was like the wind, or the child who called my mother as soon as I came home from school.

Her mother loved literature and art, and when she was young, she liked to sing and dance. It is also for this reason that the father of that year saw it and looked at it.

When I was a child, I always liked to follow my mother every day, and I was always afraid of losing my mother in the blink of an eye. When my mother worked in the fields, I squatted on the side and played with ants; when my mother was cooking, I circled around the stove, thinking that my mother would give me a taste.

At this time, my mother always pretended to whisper to me, but she always did not disappoint me. Perhaps, in the eyes of a mother, only my own child is the most adorable, whether I play like a little flower cat, or a new dress is scraped open by a branch in half a day.

After getting married and having children, I also had my own wife and my own small family, and I felt that I should be a big man who stood tall in the sky. But every time I came home, my mother still treated me as the child who had not grown up, and at first I always felt a little annoyed, but as I grew older, I realized what a wonderful happiness it was.

No matter which time I returned to Changsha from my hometown of Xuefeng Mountain, the trunk of the car was always stuffed with my mother, including tea oil that she was reluctant to eat, eggs that her mother bought from many families in the village, chickens and ducks hidden in the refrigerator, and of course, cabbage that her mother planted herself.

My mother was always worried that our family would not be able to eat well in the city, and always let us take away what she thought was the best. The mother felt that it was not a waste for her children and grandchildren to eat.

Because of work, because of children, and because of laziness, my wife and I do go back to our hometown very little every year, which is nothing more than the three holidays of Qingming, National Day, and Spring Festival, in fact, every time we go back, we are in a hurry, and we have not had time to talk to our parents well, nor have we sat down well.

It wasn't until I listened to my mother's self-question about how long we could live that I suddenly realized that not only are we getting old day by day, but in fact, our parents have gradually drifted away from us, and they are so close to the end of their lives.

I finally found that I always miss my hometown in my articles, not only the mountains and rivers of my hometown and the beauty of my childhood, in fact, we are missing our parents in our hometown and our relatives in our hometown.

It is they who make my hometown so much in my heart.

Text/Jiang Dan