New Year's Eve
Text/Zhang Fanghua
In the past, every New Year's Day, I would be very happy. Of course, this is due to the incomparable happiness and peace of the Spring Festival, especially because of the great expectation of the family reunion.
Now, in my belly, there is a sadness that is difficult to calm down. A year ago, my ninety-year-old loving mother died suddenly, and the endless mourning brought to me has become more and more intense now. The famous sentences of the Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei's poem "Remembering the Shandong Brothers on september 9" that "every festive season is doubly thought of relatives" and "one less person is inserted everywhere" have long been widely recited! And the day of my old wife's death coincided with the "Chongyang Festival" on september 9. On the first day, our mother and son were still inseparable from each other, but the next morning the old man returned to the west due to a heart attack. The old man's day of the loss of our mother suddenly turns joy into sorrow. At present, the New Year is the time of family reunion, but there is one less mother, which is ten thousand times more cruel than the scene of Wang Weinian and his relatives in his hometown who lived alone in a foreign country. The degree of my "double thoughts" is beyond words!
Mothers are the source of their children's lives and happiness, and they are also the spiritual support for us every festive season. Recently, the warm and happy scene of my mother accompanying us for the New Year always appears frequently in front of us.
Wearing new clothes for the New Year was the first thing I expected when I was young. Cold moon, long cold night, whenever I wake up in the warm bed, I will always see my mother under the kerosene lamp, lock her eyebrows and thread the needle, and hear her booing. Day after day, night after night, every year to stay up until the fifth day of the New Year. I really can't calculate how much effort my mother has put in to let our eight brothers and sisters put on new clothes and shoes at the New Year. You know, in the days when people were strapped for money, the family had no money to buy new cloth. Except for a little coarse cloth that my mother skillfully knitted with limited resources, many times my mother took apart our old cotton jackets and cotton pants, turned over the clothes table and put them on, and turned them over without wind and sun, just like new. Whenever early in the morning of the New Year, our brothers and sisters all happily put on new clothes and shoes, and stood in front of my mother with brush brushes, she looked like a commander who inspected the strict appearance of the soldiers, looking so mighty and tall, so respectable and amiable!
On New Year's day, my mother spent a lot of time in the kitchen. From sweeping the house to remove ashes, to brushing dishes and washing dishes, from grain grinding noodles to steamed bun dumplings; from cooking meat and mixing dishes to wrapping dumplings and croquettes, everything shows the mother's superb cooking skills. Her steamed bean-stuffed buns are sweet and pleasant, her steamed flower cakes and dates are beautiful, her fried balls are crispy, her cold vegetables are refreshing and crisp, and the smooth meat she cooks is delicious and not greasy. Even in the most difficult period of life, the mother has to rack her brains to make the New Year meal look like it. If there is no white noodle, white corn flour is used instead of wheat flour to make a white bun; if there is a lack of meat, it will be fried with a large amount of noodles to form a "blind talking basket". You don't have to say that this beautiful "crispy meat" is really beautiful and delicious.
With the passage of time and the unremitting efforts of our parents, we all grew up to become adults and started a family, and since the old father died of illness fifteen years ago, my mother has become the head of the family of the fourth generation. Thanks to the wealth and strength of the country, my family's life has long been different. Like a crow feeding back, every New Year's Day, we would buy our mother new clothes, new shoes, and hats and scarves that she liked. At the same time, he never forgot to give her a brand new "pressed old money" on time. Just as our mother gave us new clothes and shoes until before we died, and issued "pressure money" to our grandchildren, which reflects the yin yin for the healthy growth of our children and grandchildren, we buy new clothes and shoes for our mothers, and send "pressure money", which expresses the infinite hope for the happiness and longevity of her old people.
The mother's love benefits all aspects, and she has never neglected the slightest honor for her grandparents and grandparents, for the kindness of relatives and neighbors, and even for the worship of various gods. Therefore, it is only "good and good rewards", every spring festival, the neighbors of the whole village and the relatives and friends of all parties, the door to visit the New Year in an endless stream.
I can't remember which philosopher said, "Missing is a painful happiness." Although this kind of statement cannot offset the pain in our hearts, at the time of the New Year, we deeply recall our mother's voice and smile, recall her mother's great kindness, re-enjoy and recall the endless maternal love, and pray for the happiness of the deceased in heaven.
(2019-02-01 07:39:19)
About the Author:
Zhang Fanghua, pen name Qingquan, a native of Heze City, Shandong Province, is a member of the Chinese Essayists Association, a member of the Shandong Writers Association, a member of the Western China Essay Society, a member of the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association, and an advisor and former vice chairman of the Heze Writers Association. His works have been published in newspapers and periodicals such as China Procuratorate, China Discipline Inspection and Supervision Daily, Shandong Literature, Times Literature, Qinghai Lake, Writers Daily, Contemporary Prose, Selected Western Prose, Heze Daily, Peony Evening News, etc.; he has won the National Outstanding Literary and Art Works Award, the First Cai Wenji Literary Award, the Qilu Literary Works Annual Exhibition Excellence Award, the Times Literature Annual Prose Award, and the First Peony Literature Award. He is the author of the essay collection "Song of the Heart", "Looking Up and Flying", and the poetry collection "Feelings Of Attachment".
Editor: Ma Xuemin
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