"Zhao Dezhong has passed away!"
This was the first sentence that Madame heard on the phone of her eldest niece, and I heard Madame suddenly repeat in shock next to the phone: "Zhao Dezhong has passed away?" My heart was shocked! A picture flashed in my mind: it was a sign image with a bright smile on his face forever, a thick and sunny personality, fair skin, round face, slightly fat and rich type, and our whole family affectionately called him Xiao Zhao; This little Zhao actually died in front of my uncle my old Yin! How can it be said that death is death? It is a very sad thing to think of a deceased person by a living person now; But as an uncle, I came to write a memorial article for this relative who was kind to me, which is indeed a sad thing! Such a sudden coming of sorrow and pity, I think, if my mother is alive, even if the Spring River is full of tears, it will not flow endlessly!
Regarding Xiao Zhao's life, I only know a little bit. Xiao Zhao has a grandfather, and it is said that Xiao Zhao was raised by this grandfather from childhood to adulthood. His grandfather was a native of Yulin, Shaanxi, Xiao Zhao's father had been working on the revolution outside the country (under the leadership of the party to lead the local armed forces to fight guerrillas), his mother also remarried, after the victory of the revolution, Xiao Zhao and his father were transferred to Wuhan Wuhan Iron and Steel as a leader, and there were only two young Zhao grandfathers left in his hometown, and later they were transferred to Wuhan Iron and Steel to become workers. Because Xiao Zhao's father had old comrades-in-arms in the provincial and municipal leaders, Xiao Zhao was also worthy of being called the high-ranking cadres at that time. His grandfather had a house in Qingshan District, and my wife and I went to see his grandfather, a very easy-going and enthusiastic old worker. Xiao Zhao had a very decent house in Honggang City at that time, which was a treatment that only the children of high-ranking cadres could enjoy at that time. His father seems to be living in Qingshan Eight, I for my sister in Xinjiang to transfer back by Xiao Zhao took me to find his father, I met Xiao Zhao's stepmother, she has four children (three men and one woman) and Xiao Zhao is half-siblings, you can see that they all respect this big brother who is alone.
I knew Xiao Zhao from a love marriage between Han Qin, the eldest daughter of my wife's eldest brother, and Xiao Zhao. At that time, Han Qin was working as an accountant in a garment factory, and it happened that there was a female worker in the garment factory who was a good friend of Han Qin, who lived under Xiao Zhao, and was very familiar with Xiao Zhao, and people were enthusiastic and fast-hearted. She saw that Hanqin looked beautiful, four years younger than Xiao Zhao, and was exactly the same age, so she told Hanqin. At that time, Han Qin said that he must get permission from his parents to meet. After the eldest brother knew, he heard that it was a high-ranking cadre's son, and he hesitated for a while, or a few old compatriots in the big brother's business field said that Han Qin was born beautiful, and he was not afraid of being unable to suppress any high-ranking cadre's children, so he first met to see how people were. Therefore, Xiao Zhao offered a generous gift to the door to meet the eldest brother's family. The eldest brother took a look, the young man did not talk much straight, there was no little shelf, nor did he have a little slippery head, and the eldest brother saw it at a glance; And Xiao Zhao looked at Han Qin, did not expect that it was simply a Lin sister who fell from the sky, and was overjoyed, so he quickly entered a hot love, and soon Xiao Zhao led Han Qin to meet his father and mother, Xiao Zhao's whole family loved this beautiful girl who looked so pretty, and soon transferred Han Qin to the Qingshan District Trade Union. Because it was a turbulent time, a planned economy, they were soon married in a frugal manner, and they were very affectionate after marriage.
Because my sister went to the Xinjiang Construction Corps at that time, and my mother missed her day and night, we all returned to Huilanli on Hanzheng Street to live with my mother, because my wife was brought out of Wuhan by her eldest brother from Henan to do business since she was a child, and she regarded her eldest brother as a father, and the relationship between Hanqin and us was very close. The first relatives Han Qin wanted to move around after getting married were my uncle and her aunt (usually called Sangu) family. The first time Xiao Zhao came to our house, her mother heard that their family was a high-ranking cadre, and at that time, the family's economy was difficult, and her mother also wanted to make a few good dishes to entertain Xiao Zhao. I remember once when Zhao and I were both drunk, the two of us also went to visit the Yangtze River Bridge shoulder to shoulder, and then Xiao Zhao has always had a very close relationship with me, almost to the point of pushing the heart to talk about nothing.
Until Xiao Zhao later learned the most troubled thing in our family at that time, that is, he wanted to transfer his sister back from Xinjiang, because his mother was in a rough body, and his sister who was less than five years old was led to the "Ashram Monastery" on the eve of liberation and converted to Buddhism, and later after her sister graduated from high school, she gave up the opportunity to go to college, and with a momentary passion, she concealed her mother from signing up for the side, and at that time, she almost wanted her mother's life, and her mother lay down on the bed and cried so much that even the sheets were torn. After Xiao Zhao knew about this, he slept with me at night and said to me, "Uncle, why don't you ask my father for help in this matter?" This sentence is really like a heavenly drum ringing!
In our very ordinary small family, how to plan and how to operate such a big thing? For a while, I didn't know where to start, to climb high and knot gui to do such a difficult thing than ascending to the heavens, it was really a night of talk, I didn't dare to open my mouth! In the end, Xiao Zhao came up with an idea, saying that when his parents were resting at home and in a good mood, Han Qin first put words to explore the wind, saying that Xiao Zhao was always a guest at Hankou's aunt's house, and every time his uncle's family treated Xiao Zhao as a guest, his uncle wanted to come to visit. As a beautiful and capable daughter-in-law, Han Qin was very favored in their family and spoke effectively. Later, Xiao Zhao and his father listened to What Han Qin said, and immediately said that relatives can come and sit at will. This gave us a glimpse of the light of day, and we planned for it for several days. It was hard to prepare good wine and good cigarettes, and Xiao Zhao Hanqin accompanied me across the river to their home in Qingshan District. His father was tall, spoke Shaanxi Mandarin, was approachable, and called his uncle to sit down with his children; Little Zhao Houma is a small woman, a temperamental Liso woman, but does not put up a shelf, has affinity. We first discussed it, did not mention the transfer of the sister when we met, only greeted the family, and afterwards found the opportunity to be ventilated by the favored daughter-in-law, and everything was quietly infiltrated in the reasonable.
When an opportunity came, Xiao Zhao revealed to me that his grandfather and father had recently led the whole family to do a major family event, that is, to go to the Hanyang Biandanshan Cadre Cemetery in Wuhan City to remove his grandmother's body (which was buried at that time) and then to cremate it, and to carry the ashes back to Shaanxi to return to the roots. Who can go to the cemetery to open the coffin and remove the body? No one in the family dares to move, if you invite outsiders, who is willing to do this? Besides, if it is not a matter of taking anything casually, who can take out this decayed corpse in front of many relatives with courtesy and dignity? I think only I can, because one is that I am bold and careful, the second is that I can compile "sacred" rules on the spot, and the third is that I have a strong psychological motivation in my heart to seek people. I immediately promised Xiao Zhao, I went, I want him to go back to his grandfather and parents to tell him, my uncle knows all the procedures and etiquette, is willing to personally dig the grave and open the coffin!
Xiao Zhao's grandfather and father were very touched when they heard it, saying that their uncle was good. It was a Sunday morning, and the wind was shining. A group of us took the sacrificial incense and the pickaxe from the car and dug a hoe, and came to his grandmother's grave on the south side of The Bian Dan Mountain. The cemetery is indeed more exquisite, there is a taste of mausoleum, the tomb is located in the middle of the mountainside, facing Longyang Lake, and the feng shui is really good. I told everyone to first sweep the tomb and prostrate themselves, then put a large firecracker on the fence, and then Grandpa Zhao and his father first held the shovel to move the soil, and then the young people took turns to dig it, and when the coffin appeared, I ordered everyone to worship the undead. Then I carefully and carefully led his grandfather and father, like archaeologists gently using the newly broom to gently use the newly broom to help the floating soil on the coffin little by little, in fact, the coffin has long been decayed, I don't know what the inside of the coffin looks like after opening the coffin, but pretending to calmly ask his grandfather and his father to gently tear off the exposed and rotting coffin boards one by one, and told his grandfather and father to say to themselves: "We are here to invite the old man to come home, back to Yulin's hometown, please get up and !......."
At that time, I saw that the corpse was weathered as soon as it saw the light, and it seemed that the whole could not be supported, but fortunately I asked their family to prepare two large red cloths in advance. I asked Xiao Zhao to spread one piece on the grass in front of the tomb, and I used another piece to cover the corpse, and asked Xiao Zhao and his eldest brother to help me carry the body inside the coffin together to the red cloth laid out in the grass, and the work was done. In fact, I had already covered the face of the corpse, because when I opened the coffin, I saw that the face was a skeleton under a hat, and the clothes were rotten and could not be taken care of, and they were like rotten grass. I leaned down into the coffin and touched the underside of my clothes, all of which were bones.
At this time, I knew that what I had to do was the last key link, I gasped, prepared for the momentum, asked Xiao Zhao to protect the head wrapped in the red cloth, and asked his eldest brother to faithfully lift the feet wrapped in the red cloth behind him, so I went down to the tomb and went down to the bottom of the red cloth with my arms, shouting: "Grandma get up!" So the three of us wrapped the bones with a red cloth wrapped in dirt, and together we forcefully supported the red cloth on the grass, and then told everyone to prostrate their heads, and then his grandfather and father unveiled the red cloth and picked up the bones and packed them into the box. In the back of the tidbits, everyone can say laughing, I am also tired and sweaty while sitting panting, his father is really moved, while handing over the cigarette, while patting me on the shoulder said: "Uncle is hard, today I tired my uncle!" Grandpa also said to Xiao Zhao's father: "Uncle this man is really good, really!"
When I was smoking and resting, I also saw his grandfather pull out a gold bracelet under the rotten clothes, and later found a pair of earrings, and at that time, he smiled and gave Xiao Zhao his mother, saying that this is what the daughter-in-law should have, Xiao Zhao's youngest little sister Xiao Ling came to her mother and said: "Mom, you are rich!" Everyone laughed. Afterwards, Xiao Zhao's father got into the car with a box wrapped in red cloth, and when his father was leaving, he instructed Xiao Zhao Hanqin to accompany his uncle to the Qi Wanshun Restaurant in Zhongjia Village, Hanyang, to have a drink, and Xiao Zhao packed a ticket with me at the hotel and said: "The matter of my aunt's transfer back has become a matter!"
Sure enough, not long after, Xiao Zhao's father personally ran to the old comrade-in-arms of the municipal party committee and wrote a letter to the provincial party committee, and his father personally delivered the letter to my mother in Whelanli, who took the letter at that time, as if receiving a holy will, and almost fell to her knees in excitement... Later, with this letter, Xiao Zhao and his father used a red flag car to drive me in and out of the provincial party committee compound and find the governor... Within a week, my sister sent a telegram back from Xinjiang saying that she had received an order to transfer back!......
Things have passed for many years, it is really time like a white colt gap, the vicissitudes of the world, Xiao Zhao's life is not smooth after all, he and Han Qin did not grow old after all, they divorced very early, soon Xiao Zhao's grandfather also died, his father was later transferred to Sichuan, and soon died of illness, his stepmother took his own children to settle down in Sichuan, I heard that Xiao Zhao rarely contacted them. He and Hanqin left a son and a daughter, and eventually followed Hanqin, because Hanqin was capable and capable; I heard that Xiao Zhao later also married a woman with children, the woman only tried to be unexcusive, it is estimated that she will not be happy, but his own son gave birth to a pair of twin sons; When the twin sons turned one year old and went to the banquet to congratulate them, they did not see Zhao Dezhong... Today, thinking of Zhao Dezhong, who was kind to me, my life ended unexpectedly and suddenly, and I, once his uncle who had been his friend for years, I was very heartbroken!
Although death is sacred, Xiao Zhao leaves the world where he lived passionately with loneliness; I know that no matter how many years people live, they are all a fleeting moment in the universe, but I can never forget Zhao Dezhong, who once had a yearless friendship with me. The little fragment I quoted above is only because it can be more vividly engraved in my heart than any of my words, Zhao Dezhong's always smiling voice and smile!