Miss the second sister
- The fifth mark in the depths of the heart
Text/Yafeng
The second sister is the only sister of Yan Yan, only one year older than her, but the second sister has a very high image in the hearts of their sisters and brothers.
Yan Yan's father, who threw himself into the revolution in middle school, joined the Communist Party of China and insisted on the party's underground work for a long time. On the eve of the founding of the People's Republic of China, her father was arrested by Kuomintang agents and tortured to death in just one week after his arrest. The father's sacrifice was undoubtedly a disaster for their family. The second sister, who was less than eight years old at the time, seemed to have suddenly grown up, and she realized the responsibility of the eldest in the family, and she had to take on the burden of her father and share the problems for her mother. Since then, she has become her mother's right-hand man, and since then, she has kept her sisters and brothers in her heart.
The second sister is a down-to-earth person who does not try to be vain, she never greases and powders herself, always wears the most simple clothes, in winter a basket square towel is folded along the diagonal on the head, two cotton hands are tied with ropes hanging around the neck, saying that she is a rural person will not be suspected. Whether it is when I was a student or after I joined the work, I never stopped idle when I returned home every day, and I rushed to do everything. The second sister was the first of their sisters and brothers to join the work, and their salary income was all subsidized for the family, sharing the burden of their mother. He is particularly generous to his family and others, is very harsh on himself, and eats and wears very simple. After marriage, she rarely returned to her small home, insisted on staying with her mother, she had to accompany her mother, take care of her mother, and share her worries for her mother.
There are a few things that I am very touched by and still remember vividly. Once the family wanted to brush the house, it was supposed to be the work of a few of our men, the second sister had to work with us, moved the cabinet and moved the bed, climbed up and down, stained with dust and mortar. Once again in the courtyard to build a small kitchen, the second sister also insisted on working with us, transporting soil and moving bricks, barefoot mud... Watching her covered in muddy water is really painful.
Yan Yan was pregnant, the pregnancy test was "horizontal", and the local doctor told her to go back to Beijing to give birth. At that time, it was the era of digging deep holes and accumulating grain to prepare for war, the school planned to organize teachers to train in the mountains during the winter vacation, coupled with the shortage of manpower in the school, the leaders only approved Yan Yan to take a leave of absence to return to Beijing. Only one month before the due date, Yan Yan dragged her heavy body back to Beijing alone. I watched her awkwardly board the distant train, only silently praying in my heart for the safety of their mother and son. Back in Beijing, there is no one to accompany her to take care of her, her mother is still working in the school, her sister and brother are all working, and the burden of taking care of Yan Yan undoubtedly falls mainly on the shoulders of the second sister. The second sister rides a bicycle for dozens of miles to work every day, and can only take care of her before and after work and Sunday time, make food for her, accompany her to the hospital, and wash her feet every night. Yan Yan was going to be hospitalized, the sisters got up early in the morning, the second sister accompanied her to walk ten miles, sent her to the maternity hospital, settled down, and the second sister rode to work. Run to the hospital after work in the evening to see her. The second sister is really too hard, these are my responsibilities, what I should do, how far away, this burden is the second sister for me to pick.
Our son was born, first fed by grandma, and when he turned one year old, we took him to live in the woodland where we worked for two semesters. We both work very heavy, and are both workaholic, can not take care of children, almost every day is the first to send children to the school simple nursery, aunt has not yet worked, Kang has not yet burned, at night is always very late to pick up children, two semesters the child is sick twice. Returning to Beijing during the winter vacation, Grandma was distressed by her grandson and criticized us: "You have such a child, you must not destroy the child!" At the suggestion of my grandmother, I decided to leave my child in my grandmother's house, and I entered the street kindergarten at the age of two and two months, pretending to be two and a half years old. This undoubtedly added a great burden to my grandmother and uncles. The second sister regards the little nephew as her own, and no matter how busy and tired she is, she must take care of the child and be responsible for the child. She washes and knits sweaters for children, tells stories and reads picture books to children, teaches children to read, and insists on keeping growth diaries for children. The second sister knows that we are very concerned about the child, and writes to us every once in a while about the child's life and growth, sometimes takes a few photos and sends them to us, or writes a few crooked words on the paper with the child's small hand. Every time we read the letter from the second sister, we were moved to tears, and we thanked my grandmother infinitely in my heart for thanking my aunt and uncle.
That summer vacation, Yan Yan took her children back to Beijing to visit relatives, and on the night of arriving home, a major earthquake occurred in Tangshan, and the earthquake in Beijing was strong, and many houses were damaged and collapsed. The sleeping people were awakened by the strong shaking and shook and ran out desperately. At that time, the second sister was pregnant, very close to the due date, her body was heavy and slow, everyone ran out, and the second sister did not come out, "Second sister, come out!" The second sister slowly walked out of the house in the constant aftershocks, only to see her holding a large pond of porcelain jars in her hands, which was made of mash by her own hands. She said: "A lot of people have run out, I don't know when they can enter the house again, what to eat, this bit of mash may be able to cope with emergency!" ”
The second sister accompanied her mother to visit us in the forest area, and they were very happy to see the vast forest that they had never seen before, and to see the beautiful landscapes and rivers in the forest area. The second sister did not take this as a sightseeing tour, she saw that the forest area life is heavy, she tried every means to help us work, plant vegetables, cook, pick up a big axe to split the orange, and quietly pick up a bucket to the well platform to help me carry water, this life in the local area is mainly a man's business. She followed the example of others, tied a bucket to a reel rope, put it down and poured it into another bucket full of water, put it down to fill a bucket of water, and then picked up two buckets of water weighing eighty or ninety pounds, and walked a hundred or ten meters to pick up the water to her home. I was shocked to see the second sister struggling to carry the water back, and shouted: "Second sister, you can't go to carry water this job, it's heavy and far from saying, the wellhead is so big, and it's going to shake, it's too dangerous!" The second sister gasped and said, "It's okay, I'm exercising." ”
The younger brother got married, hired two cooks, and built a temporary stove in the courtyard, and flowed water all day. The whole family is busy with the division of labor. My task is to help the cook, and the task of the second sister is to greet visitors at the gate and take care of the bicycles for the guests in the alley. On this day, both of us were very busy and tired, and we didn't drink water or eat properly. It was dark, the guests had left, everything was packed, I found half a bottle of beer with an open lid, so I called out to the second sister: "Second sister, come, I will accompany you to have a beer." The second sister said, "Huh?! Drink with me? The expression was full of surprise and emotion. The second sister's expression made me choke. Although we all respect the second sister, admire the second sister, and take her as an example, we do give her too little love and too little warmth. What live second sister is in front, not afraid of suffering, not afraid of suffering, she thinks of the whole family, but does not know how to hurt herself, shouldn't we give her a little return!
The second sister worked very hard and hard, and when she returned home, she could not be idle, and finally died of illness due to overwork, and her life was fixed at the age of 47. The departure of the second sister, their school lost an excellent class teacher and an excellent physics teacher, the mother lost a good daughter and a right-hand man, our big family lost a pillar, and the sisters and brothers lost a good sister and a good example on the road of life.
Second sister, we miss you!
(Beijing, January 2022)
【About the author】Ya Feng (male), a native of Beijing, a literature lover who studied mathematics, has published nearly one million words of works or launched on the Internet after retirement. Carry forward the righteousness, praise the truth, goodness and beauty, and keep working hard in the old age.