My adoptive mother
My biological mother
These two photos are photos of two mothers who are not young, which I cut out from the group photo and the ID card, when they were young. According to my calculations, my adoptive mother was about 44 years old at the time, and the biological mother in the photo should be 34 years old, because this photo was cut from her college diploma.
From the time I was carried to my adoptive parents' house until two years before I joined the army, my adoptive mother was happy and content. At that time, life was good, although she did not have a job, but there were few children in the family, compared to the family of five or six children, she was relaxed. It was only from about two years before I joined the army that she started getting sick and her life was less happy. I distinctly remember that she used to lie in bed, lying down for a day, but when it was time to cook, she would struggle to get up and cook, and then lie down again after eating. I remember she was supposed to have high blood pressure, or maybe severe discomfort from menopause. Please forgive me for my filial piety, when I was a teenager, I couldn't think of asking her what was uncomfortable and what needed to be done to make her more comfortable. However, in those years, because school did not attend classes during the Cultural Revolution, I learned to steam steamed steamed buns, made flapjacks, rolled noodles, learned to make my own soy sauce (soy sauce was not available in stores), and learned to carry a large bag of flour home from about 500 meters from home. The things I did also helped her reduce her housework. My adoptive mother's later unhappiness also stemmed from the quarrel between her and my adoptive father after we arrived in Xi'an because the "poor relatives" in Xi'an's hometown often came to harass them: the father would give them money when the father came from the old family and the father was not so happy when the father gave the money. Once my mother was sweeping the floor and suddenly put down the broom and cried, telling me that a woman must have money herself, otherwise it will be difficult to see people's faces. At this time, I knew that they had quarreled again over the money for my uncle's family.
Do you know what impression she has imprinted on my mind? One year before the New Year, my brother and I were sent out in the early hours of the morning to queue up to buy pig heads. She stood by the fence in the hallway outside my house and looked out the building, and when she saw me and my brother appear from the corner of the building, she withdrew her gaze. Many, many years later, she passed away, and the only thing I can clearly remember is her gaze looking outward...
I showed my husband this picture of my biological mother in old age, and he said he was better looking than my adoptive mother.
Old age of the biological mother
I looked at the picture and imagined her 23 years of marriage to her dad, the second half of the 31 years she experienced alone after his dad died. Mom is 12 years younger than Dad, and Dad is so cultured and literate, she should be spoiled, right? She was 41 years old when her spoiled husband died, how did she get through those years? What are her unfulfilled wishes in her last days? These problems had to be left to my eldest sister to tell me slowly. Thankfully, my mother went to college, she worked all the time, and she had three daughters and a son by her side. Although several of her children were out of the army, she had a heart to rely on, and she was at ease.
When her biological mother died, her eldest daughter was more than fifty, her second daughter, third daughter, and only son, more than forty, and together they gave her the last journey. Although she didn't see her young daughter who was also in her forties, she should be very relieved to leave, right?
yes! My two mothers! May you rest in peace in the Spirit of Heaven! May you bless us!