Twilight years without light
In 2022, Grandpa will turn ninety.
In Yangjiang, he was the oldest living old man. It's an amazing thing and something to be proud of. So many people, running to the journey of life from a similar starting point as him, how many years of suffering, wind and rain, and how many people are getting better and better, and how many people have left the scene early before tasting the sweetness? Grandpa was lucky and blessed.
But looking at him, there was always a faint sadness in my heart, and sometimes I didn't even dare to look at his cloudy eyes.
It's not just that he's older and his body is aging. No matter who it is, it will go to the twilight years, and it will be confined to the cycle of birth and death.
In 2019, Grandpa suffered a heavy blow, like an originally fragile locomotive, suddenly and violently bumped, the parts were scattered, and the consequence was to collapse on the bed forever. This added some sadness to his later years. The years have been merciless, and the torment of illness is to sprinkle salt on the sores. His once tall body curled up stiffly, the flesh of his face collapsing without any luster, and his two eyeballs seemed to be covered with a thin layer of frost. At this point, his daily life was lying down, and his life was externalized into various curled and twisted shapes, even if the sun was shining outside the window, but grandpa's bedroom was always filled with an inexplicable smell or color. It was the smell and luster that characterized twilight, and it had nothing to do with the outside world.
The end and return of life turned out to be so cruel.
Whenever I sit in front of the bed and talk to him, I always lose my mind, maybe he is also wandering. When the conversations between us no longer intersect, the brief void between them can only be occupied by the memory of the wandering back, and then flood out. Yes, how can I forget when he was with Yangjiang?
His ordinary and warm local years complemented the simple diligence of Yangjiang in the 90s, even though he was in his early 60s at the time. He worked as a township supply and marketing cooperative all his life, and did not have the tiredness and vicissitudes of his peers in the dirt. After retirement, he is still clean, the small yard is neat and tidy because of him, and even feel that because of him, the whole Yangjiang River has brought out a quiet atmosphere, the surrounding houses are quiet, the grass and trees are silent, and the water of the West Bay is like a copper mirror. This is probably a specific feeling that I have developed because of my long-term follow of him. Because he rarely went to the ground, his life pattern was fixed and orderly: in the early morning he was the first to get up, open the door, take the urinal, and the air suddenly became fresh. When Grandma was adding water to the stove to cook and the tongue of fire was running between the stoves, he began to push up the wooden cart, put a huge plastic bucket on each side of the car, and went to the first family in the east of the village to draw sweet well water. In about fifteen minutes, the bucket was filled, and he tied it with a rope to the sides to secure it. The weight of more than two hundred pounds pressed the axle "creaking", but he could control it steadily, and when he met acquaintances, he did not delay to say hello, and the firm and calm figure was now judged by two people. When the water from the bucket was poured into the urn, the heat came out of the top of his head, and the room was also busy with his grandmother, and the time was not fast or slow until eight o'clock. He unscrewed the iron box-like radio, and a familiar rooster voice came out: Hello listeners and friends, let's pick up the book, Xu Liang, the white-browed hero... The porridge was full, he boiled the freshly rolled well water, brewed a pot of jasmine tea, and finally sat down at the table. The door of the house is open, the sun is shining, there will be people coming to the door to drink tea, and Grandpa Li Jia is short, and the time of the morning is soft and loose, like a thread spun by grandma on the side.
He has big hands and big feet, but he brings out a sense of ingenuity in his bones. In the spring, he incarnated as a florist, and under the eaves of the roof a patchwork of flowers and grasses, the shyness of the spring flowers, the conservatism of the begonia flowers, the elegance of the daffodils, decorated the courtyard handsomely; in the summer, he could always find the densest place of the fish on the edge of the bay deep in the reed forest, and the whole afternoon did not move, and the crucian carp of all size jumped into the fish basket; in autumn, he would arrange the vegetable field of the patio with melons and fruits, and he could put a hand on the horse (kite), and take advantage of the west wind to send it to the sky, and the deep sky suddenly became reachable In winter, it is the stage for him to show his dumpling craft, the leek meat pieces he adjusts are not salty or light, the skin of the rolled dumplings is not thin or thick, the dumplings are not big or small, and the snow outside is bigger, the stronger the dumplings. Yangjiang, a place with a big palm, a place of duty, so many delicious and fun and good-looking, are all played in his procedural life. Especially in the summer dusk, the image of him cooling off after dinner, the knife is engraved in my memory. The clouds of fire had poured out of the west, and the farmers were busy returning from the fields, and it was the time when it was lively that he was already sitting in front of the courtyard. He was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt on the top, and underneath was blue indeed cool pants, and the legs of the pants were wrapped around the neck of the feet, clean and sharp; holding a fan in his hand, he looked light, and his belly was slightly bulging out, comfortable and comfortable. At this time, he was so incompatible with the texture of Yangjiang. It seems that he is not a Yangjiang person at all. The ingenuity in his bones, as well as the sense of superiority accumulated over the years, made him casually dazzle in the cool under the moon. Before the people had arrived, he had already come out and shook the fan to drink tea; the people were having a lot of fun, and he patted his ass and took a big stride home. He and Yangjiang are inseparable and perfect with each other.
The moon grew larger and brighter when it was cool that year, and the darker and darker the moonlight lying on his bedding became. Whenever the moon in Tsucheng comes out at night, I always wonder if this is the month of Yangjiang in that year? Because of Grandpa's drowsiness, the moonlight projected through the window also seemed weak, as if it really came from the countryside thirty years ago, showing fatigue. There were countless stories hidden under the moon of that year, told under the swaying fan of grandpa; the moon was bare today, and the shrouded city of Jincheng was also gray and bald, and the taste of that night was no longer authentic.
In fact, since my grandfather moved away from Yangjiang at the beginning of the new century, I can no longer smell the smell of the ink-like viscous night. Oh, like flowers and grasses, all need root veins. Because flowers and grasses have roots, they can "spring wind blow and grow again", and so do people. Zhuang households, ancestors have bred in this saline and alkali land for generations, and the foundation of people is the foundation of the house, just like some old people, who live with their children for a few days and are uncomfortable, and when they return to the soil kang, everything is smooth.
In the mid-summer of 2002, my grandparents moved to the county with my father, when my grandfather was 70 years old. It was a departure full of contradictions, helplessness and even bitterness. He will say goodbye not only to a familiar and peaceful life, an old friend who has brought his relatives with his deceased, but also a one-way journey of life. His decades of action in this land, sitting, flickering and moving, will disappear like a phantom. I did not personally experience his look and mood when he moved, but after arriving in the county, it did take him a long time to adapt to a relatively lonely and lonely new life.
In the brick courtyard opposite the county town of The Fourth Mine, he and his grandmother lived for twelve years, a whole cycle. In the past twelve years, the second elder was glad that he had not encountered a serious illness or disaster, and time passed in a vague way, and they lived without pain or itch. In the past twelve years, Yangjiang has continuously sent news of the death of the elderly, most of them are familiar to the grandfather, he from the beginning of the long sigh, to the later silent, as if gradually see through the life and old illness and death, no longer entangled. Only when he drank tea, when he heard the white things of his hometown, the hand would suddenly grasp the teacup tightly, and he was stunned, and time seemed to be stagnant. At that moment, beneath his calm exterior, were certain people, certain things, and certain scenes in his homeland boiling in his heart? The same jasmine tea, drunk into the mouth, but can no longer taste the taste of when listening to Shan Tianfang's book.
The only thing he often nagged about was the rheumatism of his knees, the old roots of the disease, which faintly ached as he grew older, and also laid the groundwork for later leg paralysis. In 2013, the courtyard was facing demolition, and the old couple had to move again. In this year, his spiritual head suddenly became depressed, he became less likely to talk, and his eyes began to be unfocused. Looking back now, this was the first turning point in his twilight journey, and the train of life began to walk no longer smoothly. During that time, he was physically lazy, or when he arrived at a new place, there were fewer opportunities to visit the door, and he often sat for half a day. His expression rose up, the boundaries between sadness and joy were no longer clear, and his voice began to be insufficient. In the past, he could communicate with the grandmother behind his ear, but now he basically did not speak, and instead the grandmother came to shout at him. I saw that his legs were not strong, bought him a pair of crutches, and he unceremoniously threw them aside. I experienced his strength in front of his children and grandchildren, and I also experienced his arrogance and stubbornness in walking all his life in Yangjiang. I've never seen him ask for someone down three or four times. But now, the years have been rude to him, his body is slumped, and his shoes begin to mop when he walks, and step by step he moves forward with great effort. From the look in his once calm and confident eyes, I read a little helplessness and fear, but who can help him escape the barriers of the erosion of time?
He sat quietly, with the occasional broken step, lest his legs really feel like they were pressed against a boulder and could no longer move. His life was back to the fixed pattern it had been before, but the content was no longer colorful, and the tea was too lazy to drink. The sixth and tenth masters of Yangjiang who drank tea with him, and the old Song and old Li of the county courtyard were no longer alive. When people go to the tea, the tea aroma is almost gone.
At the beginning of 2019, the March day was warm and cold, he walked in the house, tired, approached the sofa and sat down, did not expect to slip down directly and break the tailbone, coupled with the weakness of the legs, the lower body can no longer support the weight of the whole body.
Soon after he was discharged from the hospital, he had a fever for several days, which made him directly enter a state of chaos and began to talk nonsense and become delirious. His father was already preparing for the aftermath, but he was not desperate, two large bags of blood were transfused into the body, and miraculously returned from the ghost door. Life is fragile, sometimes very strong, and Grandpa did not give up in the journey against his fate. When he got home, he changed two big things. One is to complain that Grandma is no longer condescending. He was a township cadre, his grandmother was illiterate, and in the past, he made a plank for the top pillar; now he was bedridden, eating and drinking Lazar could not do without his grandmother, and he no longer argued with her about big things and small things. No matter how stubborn he is, he will not be able to withstand the toughness of the years. He began to understand the current affairs and began to bow his head. The second is that he often has strange dreams, which my grandmother told me, and when I talk to me, I will laugh happily, and my grandfather who listens to me will also show a rare smile. Most of these dream contents are related to Yangjiang. Although the homestead of the old home has long been renamed, the foundation of the homestead does not fall, and the roots will always exist. Yangjiang nurtures and creates everyone, and every Yangjiang person gives back and shows the blood of Yangjiang. He is no exception. No matter how long he worked outside the revolution, when he returned to his hometown, the huge silver moon was the most eternal confirmation of his clan bloodline.
When I came home for the New Year this year, I saw that he was fatter again, but because of the lack of blood supply, his hands and feet were always cold and always wrapped tightly. At noon, he sat in a wheelchair and ate a reunion dinner with his family, but after the meal, he could not sit still, he had to lie down, and when he lay down, he fell asleep. The old couple did not watch the Spring Festival Gala a few years ago, and even the most favorite Peking Opera was intermittent, and at night, the night was particularly quiet in this bedroom. This year, fireworks are prohibited, the taste of the year is much lighter, and the annual scenery of Jincheng city from the window is no different from the ordinary night in winter. In this silence, I still think of those nights many years ago, when the moon hung in the air and was bright; a group of people under the moon, their voices ringing and their spirits full, although they were old, but the sunset was not old, and the maple leaves were red. The moon sprinkled with radiance generously, and everyone's face was wrapped in a white veil, and they were like a group of gods in the Yaochi feast. My grandfather, sitting straight and clean on the maza, was so dazzling in the crowd that he kept up with a few words from time to time, not much to say, but loud and in the point, revealing an unquestionable tone. It was his own glorious years in the '90s. My pity for his current situation was like looking for the moon that had been hidden for thirty nights, and there were countless stories under the moon. When you can't find it, you are left confused and praying.
He rolled over and coughed softly twice; I followed the sound, his face hidden in the shadows, unable to see his expression clearly. I wish he had been immersed in a dream of longing, that he had fulfilled his wish, achieved his purpose, and smiled like a child.
Tonight there is no moon in the sky, may there be light in his heart.
(Photo by Cao Xinqing)
About author:Yang Lianfeng, post-80s, Shandong Lijin people. A number of novels were published in Times Literature, Mountain Flower, Contemporary Novels, Shandong Literature, etc., and short stories were reprinted by Novel Monthly. He is the author of the novel collection "Falling Flowers and Locusts" and the prose collection "Yangjiang Fables".
