Pictures, texts, videos| Lu Meng
Clip | Sha Zihan
Edited | Mao Yijun
("2021, My 21" Video Shooting and Production: Zhang Liuliu)
I didn't accept this fact at the time, hospitals in Shanghai and Nanjing had alzheimer's test results, and doctors predicted that my mother might lose the ability to walk independently by the end of the year (the end of 2020).
I began to look for various information on the Internet, and also added a lot of patient groups to understand the disease, and learned that many patients will have symptoms of muscle atrophy, and the limbs have become very thin. (I see) Mom wasn't that serious, so she repeatedly told herself, "Mommy can be fine..."
At that time, the epidemic, school online classes, I stayed at home with my mother for 11 months. During that time, I felt that life was quite gray, because (originally) the family had always been supported by my mother.
●Every day, Zhang Liuliu has to help her mother practice walking 5 or 6 times. From March last year to the present, his mother has insisted on every day, and her ability to move has not further deteriorated. This made Zhang Liuliu feel relieved.
Mom has a gentle personality and doesn't show negative emotions in front of me, and she always says", "I will definitely get better". Since falling ill, she has often played cheerful children's songs on her mobile phone, sat in a chair by herself, and swung left and right to exercise.
She was a person who loved cleanliness, wiping the floor with a rag every day, and every piece of clothing had to be folded neatly. When I was in high school, my mother worked as an accountant, ran a business outside every day, and even if she was busy, she would come home on time to cook dinner for me. In my junior year of high school, every day after I finished my evening self-study at nearly 9 o'clock, when I came home, the dishes on the table were hot - taro roast meat, winter melon roasted ribs, and my mother would often cook some of my favorite dishes.
Not long after she fell ill, I began to slowly take on the chores and chores of life. I've done some of it before, but I'm not skilled. I learned to cut vegetables and cook, and my mother would watch me from the sidelines, teaching me carefully every step. Once, I bought a pig bone to prepare soup for her, looking at the bones full of blood, I didn't know where to start, cut it several times without success, and finally put the whole bone into the pot. I brought her whole bone broth and gave her a laugh.
● Mom does instrument rehabilitation at home.
When my mother was still able to walk, I helped her to exercise back and forth on the stairs, drove a battery car to accompany her to the hospital for infusions, and helped her beat her legs at night to massage, slowly realizing her difficulty. In August 2020, she became shaky and was already walking at about the same speed as the elderly, but sometimes mopping the floor and cleaning up the house.
● During the meal, my mother did not forget to tell Zhang Liuliu some ways to deal with things.
● After the meal, Zhang Liuliu helped her mother clean her mouth.
After school started, I had regular voice chats with my mom. She would tell me what I had done today and would ask me how I was doing. But out of concern for me, she rarely talks about her illness.
The obvious changes in the body occurred in early January 2021. When I came home from the winter vacation of my sophomore year, she could no longer walk independently, needed help to stand up, and spoke very clearly.
That was the first time I felt her life passing. I couldn't take it anymore, "How did Mom get to this?" ”
●Nowadays, Zhang Liuliu's mother's feet can only be lifted slightly. In Zhang Liuliu's view, the best news is that her mother can maintain the status quo.
● Zhang Liuliu fed her mother to drink Chinese medicine.
Last March, before the start of school, I gave my mother the boiled Chinese medicine. By then, her arms could no longer be raised, but her hands still had some grip. I put her hands between her legs and the cup in her hands and let her drink the medicine with a straw.
"I'll give you a letter and you'll write it down." She took two sips of the medicine and twisted her head to talk to me.
She paused for a moment and said the first sentence in our old dialect, very slowly, "Mommy loves you very much." When she finished, she looked at me and smiled.
For about 30 minutes, she said 16 instructions intermittently. After every time I said one, I took a break and looked at me. I recorded it word for word.
I knew her purpose, and I had two days left to go, and she was afraid that the next time I came back, I would not be able to speak and would not have a chance to tell me again. I pretended to be relaxed and said to her, "Can I help you adjust the word order?" Then give her the faith.
After that, every time I came home, she would let me tell her the belief, and she kept revising it, from 16 to 19, always worried about what else had not been asked.
● Zhang Liuliu feels that smiling is the best way to face her mother.
【Mother's Dictation Letter to Zhang Liuliu】
1. Mom loves you very much
2. To be physical first, to exercise properly, to relieve stress and troubles, not to stay up late, to eat less garbage, to see small diseases in time
3. Do things with a goal plan Set a good goal to seriously insist on doing it When encountering difficulties, do not shrink back, and insist on doing it. Only by relying on yourself to slowly get through the difficulties, others can't help, only you can save yourself, you have to believe that the difficulties are temporary, and sticking to it will definitely be rewarding. Be in a good state of mind and treat it with a normal heart. The more anxious things are, the more you have to do them slowly.
4. Be honest and trustworthy, be self-reliant and self-reliant
5. Read more, have time to go out and look around, learn endlessly, and if you don't learn, you will retreat
6. Talk to others Less and more concisely Talk less and do more
7. People who are poor cannot be short-sighted, cannot love other people's money, and they must use the money they earn to save and work hard
8. To restrain the shortcomings can not let it be magnified
9. Don't be impulsive when things happen, think twice, think calmly when encountering difficulties, and talk to people well
10. It doesn't matter if there is no character first, there is character and talent, it is really useful (in life, people cannot be judged by their appearance, they must look at their character)
11. Try not to drink alcohol Really need to drink need to be restrained in moderation
12. Don't gamble Yellow gambling drugs should stay away
13. Family is just as important as career. Other women should not believe that their wives should respect each other and trust each other and tolerate each other. Use money to be discussed Big money must be discussed There must be a plan for using money
14. The family should be harmonious Home and everything to give children a good environment to grow up
15. Be filial to the elderly
16. To sisters and brothers, unite and love each other and help each other
17. Be appropriately humble in order to be self-motivated
18. Mom wishes you a healthy and happy growth every day
19. Self-respect and self-love, be a righteous gentleman, family and everything, a good family, a good career, everything will be good, there is a family to have a country, the family should be the first to cultivate children, it is important to put education first, to stick to it for a long time, to teach by example, to cultivate children successfully than to have money, to cultivate success is also success in life
Writing letters has always been an important way for mom and me to communicate.
When I was in high school, because it was a private school, the surrounding classmates were very well-off, and the comparison psychology was also strong, I was not very accustomed to this atmosphere for a while, and my academic performance was not ideal. Because of (these) things, I sometimes talk to my mom. Mom would let me calm down first, and she would start writing to me in plain language.
The next day, she put the written letter on the table. She first reflects on herself, then tells me how to solve the difficulties I encounter, and also writes some words of encouragement to me. She led me to reflect rather than deal with things emotionally, and (also) didn't physically punish me.
●Above: In order to prevent her mother from being sedentary and tired, Zhang Liuliu often picks up her mother and stretches her muscles and bones. Below: When Zhang Liuliu was in high school, his mother wrote him a letter.
●Above: Mom holds Zhang Liuliu's hand and practices walking. Below: Mother's letter to Zhang Liuliu.
When I was growing up, it was basically my mother who taught me, and she also took on the responsibility of the whole family. My family is in Dafeng District, Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, and my dad works in Yancheng, 40 kilometers away, sometimes coming back once a week or two. When [I]mede, my mother was laid off from a state-run factory, and she sold milk tea and opened a supermarket.
In order to give me a better education, my parents sent me to Yancheng Senior Experimental Middle School. At that time, the tuition fee was 45,000 yuan for three years, which added a lot of pressure to my mother. In order to accompany the reading, she also went to Yancheng with me.
We rented a small house of 40 square meters next to the school. At first, she couldn't find a suitable job, so she temporarily worked as a cleaner in our school, working during the day and going to accounting training classes at night. Every morning, she was earlier than I went to school, and before she left, she would leave me a note with what to eat today and let me study hard.
My mother cared a lot about educating me. She was the eldest daughter in the family, and when she only went to junior high school to work as a worker in a textile factory, she felt that she had suffered the loss of no culture. Since she was a child, she would read books to me, buy me books to read, and give me bookstore card on my birthday. I remember when Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize in Literature, my mother also bought "Frog" for me.
● In her spare time, Zhang Liuliu sorted out the photos of her mother in the old photo album.
My mom wrote me letters for more than half a year, and after I graduated from high school, she sorted them out and put them in the drawer. In fact, I didn't particularly care about these letters at the time.
In the winter vacation of 2021, I took out these letters again, and I couldn't read the first letter, I was sad. Feelings and mother's many experiences, probably for the first time and for the last time.
● Above: On weekdays, my mother always smiles at everything around her. Below: Mom reflects on herself in a letter to Zhang Liuliu.
I often take pictures in my life, and I used to think it was more fun. I remember in 2019, just went to Nanjing to go to college for the first winter vacation (before), my mother came to pick me up at the train station. On the way home, I took a picture of her casually. It was the first time my mother had picked me up at the station, and (now it seems) the last.
When she got home, she began to have symptoms, unable to raise her hands when she tied her hair, and did not move the shovel when cooking. At that time, because of the epidemic, I was with my mother every day, and I did not notice that her condition had changed significantly.
● Zhang Liuliu played guitar to his mother.
In the past summer vacation, I liked to stay at home and read books, sometimes play games or something, my mother said I wanted to go out, sometimes I would perfunctory. (Now) I value it even more and many of her experiences. In May 2020, I took her to the park next to my home for a walk, to take pictures, and stop and go. When I came back from [vacation], my mother would never be able to walk again.
These moments will always disappear. I just recorded it, and I didn't have so much regret in my heart.
● Before her mother lost her mobility, the last time she visited the park, Zhang Liuliu photographed her resting in a chair. (Photo: Zhang Liuliu)
From incapacitation, Mom's life was basically in the room, sitting in a chair every day with nothing to do. I wrote in a memo on my phone, "I bring the world to you." "I wanted to bring her something new and show her everything I'd experienced.
My mother didn't raise flowers much, and when I came home from the May Day holiday last year, I bought a pot of 8 yuan of "longevity flowers" for her. After two months, a small red flower bloomed on the branch, and my mother was very happy and asked the nurse aunt to take a picture and send it to me.
● Longevity flower in zhang Liuliu's mother's hand.
Last summer, I bought some brightly colored T-shirts to wear for her. Before she fell ill, she was busy with work, and she did not pay special attention to her dressing on weekdays, but only wore some clothes with darker colors. Once, when I changed her into goose-yellow pajamas and took a picture, she said happily, "Like what children wear, it's fun." ”
I will also deliberately put some daily things in front of her to do to relieve her boredom. While doing the laundry, I brought the basin to her and asked her to watch me wash it. Although it was to amuse her, she would still tell me how to wash the neckline of the clothes, and pay attention to the sweaty areas on the back or underarms.
● Zhang Liuliu took the washed clothes outside to dry.
Mom was like going back to her childhood and asking for food. I also realized that I had grown up and started to hide my emotions in front of my mother, not showing her sadness, and I would adjust before entering the door.
Every night after my mom finished her medication, I would lie down next to her pillow and talk to her until she went to sleep. It's like when I was a kid, she told me stories by the bedside. I want to get to know her, and I want to have the opportunity to express herself through images and let others know that she is really a great mother.
●Zhang Liuliu took pictures of her mother, grandmother and aunt.
●Zhang Liuliu uses a Polaroid camera to record her mother's daily life.
When I got back to school, I would call my mom for 2-3 minutes every day and tell her about my life at school. Her smiling face can be seen through the video, and sometimes she can't hear clearly, but the expression on her face can convey information.
I remember on November 26, 2021, I talked to my mom about my college grades in the past two years, and she sent me a "hug" emoji — that was the last message she sent me.
She couldn't move her fingers at the time, and it was a week before I learned that she was stuck in one hand and knocked out with the knuckles of the other hand.
● Zhang Liuliu used the money saved in life to buy a new mobile phone for her mother as a Thanksgiving gift.
● In order to prevent her mother from being bored in the house for a long time, Zhang Liuliu always shows something new to make her happy.
● During the break between taking care of her mother, Zhang Liuliu also began to prepare for the graduate school. He plans to study directing in the future and make his mother's story into a work.
Today, I am a junior at Nanjing Forestry University. In order to take care of my mother, I don't have any social activities on weekdays. I will choose the examination room for IELTS, fund qualification, Mandarin proficiency test and other tests in other places, so that I can take the opportunity to go out to experience the customs and customs of different cities, and I can also take some photos to show my mother.
At the end of last year, a friend saw me taking a picture of my mother and thought I could make a video, and I thought and I did have a lot of stories to tell. So I made this year's experience into a short film called "2021, My 21 Years Old", which is 8 minutes and 20 seconds long – it is my mother's lunar birthday.
●Above: Last year's mother's birthday, Zhang Liuliu ordered a cake. (Photo: Zhang Liuliu) Below: In 2016, when Zhang Liuliu celebrated her birthday, her mother wrote birthday wishes.
At first I didn't pass the video to my mom because I was worried she would be sad after watching it. However, the video quickly went viral online, and mom saw the video after a relative forwarded it to my dad.
I video called her and still cried.
After the video was released, many netizens and I left private messages, and many friends around me knew about my mother's situation. There was a photography blogger who wanted to take a set of photos of my mom. Since my mother took wedding photos 20 years ago, she has never taken a photo like a photo. We planned to buy some clothes, find out the clothes she was young, from 20 years old to 60 years old, 70 years old, let her go back to her youth, and also look at how she looks old.
Mom's life is slowly disappearing, and I am now thinking about how to use my own strength to enrich her existing time.
● Holding her mother is one of the most common movements Zhang Liuliu does on weekdays.
●Zhang Liuliu and her parents take a group photo. It is my mother's greatest wish for my family to live together in harmony every day.
This article is reproduced from [Polar Day Studio]