Mom, you learn my aunt to speak, the speed should be slow, the voice should be elongated, the voice should be thin", I have not called my mother for the eldest sister, and my daughter reminded me.
"I don't think your grandmother can hear it, because I usually call your grandmother, and she often asks me: Are you Yuxiang?" Or Yuzhi? I can't hear the voices of the two of you..." Although I comforted my daughter like this, I actually had no bottom in my heart. Because I'm a person who doesn't like (and isn't good at) lying.
My mother's date of birth was the eighteenth day of the eighth lunar month in 1928, and the sister was admitted to the hospital for a sudden emergency illness on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the eighth lunar calendar in 2017. Although my mother is nearly 90 years old, she has no major physical problems except for hearing loss. Relatives are unanimous: you can't tell your mother and sister about her illness. Because everyone knows that every Saturday my sister calls my mother at a fixed time. At this time, I knew very well in my heart that the person who took over the phone call for my sister was none other than me, because of the seven brothers and sisters, only I and my sister were sisters.
On the first Saturday and Sunday after staying with my sister in the first hospital of Harbin Medical University, I chose to go up the stairs from the inpatient office floor after floor before eight o'clock, and finally found a secluded corner on the top floor, because every time my sister called her mother, she was at her house, and there was no noise. Only in this way can the mother hear clearly, and the main thing is that it is not easy for the mother to hear the flaws.
At this time, I was afraid that someone would interfere, hurriedly took out the mobile phone, some uneasiness, I tried my best to think back to her voice tone when I usually chatted with the eldest sister, deduced what she could talk to her mother, and guessed what topic the mother would ask her sister... After thinking about it, my heart is still bottomless, what if I say it wrong? I simply made a draft, so I took out the pen I carried with me, and found a supermarket statement from my pocket, and the moment I picked up the pen, I felt that I was hot, but my hands felt cold again.
Outline and draft. I fixed my mind, opened my phone, raised my voice, slowed down my speech, and thinned my voice. "Mommy! I am Xiang..." I was terrified and chatted with my mother briefly as the eldest sister for a while, hung up the phone, and a hanging heart finally let go.
Unexpectedly, the third brother who was taking care of his mother the next day called and said, "My mother told me, is your eldest sister sick?" The voice was not quite right, and I didn't say a few words to me..." Or showed a flaw!
After my niece heard about this, she reminded me: "Every time my mother calls my grandmother, the first time she calls my mother, she must be loud, and she never takes the initiative to pick up the phone, when my grandmother does not nag, when to hang up the phone..." I remembered my niece's prompt, so I had the experience of lying for the second, third, and Nth time.
Every time I lied, my heart was very sad, because after nearly two months, my sister left us.
When my sister was chatting with me before I died, she explicitly said: I wish I could walk behind my mother, because I called her every week, and she was used to it for so many years. Don't look at her almost 90 years old, but she is not confused at all, the fourth is gone, it is a big blow to her, I am really afraid that she can't stand it...
I know that my sister has worries that she can't let go, so the first thing I did before rushing to the Harbin Funeral Home Sister's Spirit Hall on the evening of November 28, 2017 was to tell my sister to go with confidence, and it was up to me to call my mother...
Unfortunately, the days of lying were less than two years old, the mother's listening and expression skills were reduced in the last few months of her life, and the landline at home lost its greatest role.
So far, two years have passed since the days of lying. In this case, I cannot but say that it is a kind of happiness. Because in lying I could hear my mother's kind voice, in lying I replaced the object of my mother's unspoken talk, and in lying I fulfilled my promise to my sister.
If I could turn back the clock, I would still like to continue to tell that beautiful lie, because from a certain point of view, lying is also a kind of happiness...
2022. 1. 15