Wen | Li Xiaofang Wei Xiaohan
Editor| Wang Shan
Men without identity
There were no personal items that could indicate the man's identity. He didn't have a single photo, he didn't have a cell phone, he didn't write down even a few words. He can write, and although he doesn't recognize many words, no one in the whole nursing home has known or cared about it in the past decade. People only know that his name is Qi Xiaoming, 34 years old. Vaguely understood that he was an autistic person, did not talk much, and could not communicate with people very well. I heard about the reason why he came here, it is said that his mother died early, and his father died at home ten years ago, so he was sent in by the community neighborhood committee.
That's all people can tell you, a 34-year-old man.
No one came to visit him. If nothing else, he would spend the next ten years, or even longer, in this home for the elderly in Changping, Beijing, waiting for a complete forgetting.
It wasn't until last December that a group of parents of mentally handicapped children heard a story about bringing with them several long-lost photos in an attempt to help him regain contact with the world. When a group photo of two middle-aged men in Tiananmen Square was placed in front of him, Xiaoming pointed out his father from the yellowed photo.
Qi Xiaoming sometimes muttered the words "South Exit", and the people in the nursing home knew that it was his former home, but no one cared. Mother Xiaowen, a volunteer who went to visit, couldn't understand some of the words he said, "But we want to hear, we want to know." She asked Bob, "Will you write?" I have pen and paper in my bag. ”
Xiaowen's mother has a 22-year-old autistic child, "I have a strong sense of substitution, I feel that Xiaoming is my child." Other people may not care about Xiaoming, where did he come from and where he went? Your curiosity about him drives you to want to know more. ”
More than one meter and eight meters, 190 pounds of lacquer Xiaoming crouched in front of the low coffee table, the back ridge was bent, and the whole face seemed to be attached to the paper. Somewhat awkwardly, he grabbed the pen between his thumb and forefinger and scribbled his home address in Nankou Town, Changping. The people in the nursing home were amazed, and for the first time they knew he could write. The dean speculated that Xiaoming's father may have been worried about his disappearance, and took a lot of effort to carve this information into Xiaoming's heart little by little.
● On the lattice paper, Xiaoming wrote the words.
Xiaoming's appearance pokes at the deepest fears and worries of autistic parents - parents will always grow old and die one day, what should the remaining children do? It is easy to have a mouthful of food to eat, and it is easy to cover your head with a tile, but it should not be just that when a person lives. Children with autism have a hard time creating, maintaining bonds and emotions with others, and when their parents leave, they are likely to be forgotten by the world.
And Qi Xiaoming is now discovered and remembered, in a sense, thanks to his dead father. His father made him more than just a living person.
The story begins with a huge legacy. In April last year, 1,000 kilometers away in Shanghai, an elderly man died of cancer at the age of 87. He had no children and his wife died 12 years ago. Before his death, he was a senior expert of the Shanghai Municipal Medical Laboratory Animal Management Committee. He left behind a house in downtown Shanghai, worth about 10 million yuan, and gave it to the caregivers who took care of him for more than ten years. According to judicial procedures, the inheritance of non-close relatives requires confirmation of the validity of the testamentary agreement.
Commissioned by the Shanghai Notary Office, Sika, a finisher, stepped into the house where "books are everywhere" for the first time. The house is very old, the light bulbs are not broken, and the furniture is all in the style of the 1990s. After two days of collation, Sika handed over a 54-page list of relics, of which 63 letters were scattered in the old man's collection of novels, history books and scientific works.
The envelope had yellowed and added folds. The letter paper is informal, including the note page torn from the coil book, there is a small square of composition paper, white paper for writing lesson plans, like something at hand, just take it with you. The first letter, written in 1981 and running until 2007, reads: "Brother Qiansheng" — his younger brother, living in Beijing.
In that era of no telephone and WeChat, one long letter after another contacted the brothers, and also recorded the brother's life for nearly 30 years, including the cello music he loved to listen to, a person who spent Chinese New Year's Eve of sadness and loneliness, idle to compose sonnets, and the child who had been forgotten for ten years, "amazingly beautiful".
In one of the particularly thick, 12-page letters, Ji Chen, a Shanghai notary, saw his younger brother Qi Qiansheng write, "This child of mine is 'autistic' (or 'autistic'), not melancholy!" It's lifelong. He said that there was a sudden "buzz" in his head, and by checking the archives, he knew that Qi Qiansheng had died as early as 2011, but if he still had a child with autism, where had the child gone in this decade? Who cares for you?
Starting from the needs of work and the feelings of the father of an autistic child, Ji Chen went to the Beijing Rong'ai Rongle Family Support Center for the Mentally Handicapped and asked them to go to the beijing suburban nursing home to see the autistic child who had lost his guardian.
63 family letters, a father and son who have been forgotten in the old times, thus emerged in the relay of people.
● Xiaoming's father's correspondence with his brother, the photo in the lower right corner is a group photo of his father and uncle in Tiananmen Square.
I was on September 6 at 11:03 a.m
Begin to become a boy's dad
If the father in the letter, Qi Qiansheng, had chosen the most important year of his life, 1988 might have been one of the alternatives.
Born into a large family in Jiangxi, Qi Qiansheng's father studied in Japan in his early years and was the president of the provincial high court. In 1958, at the age of 21, he graduated from university and was assigned to the Railway Electrification School in Nankou Town, Changping, Beijing, as a mathematics teacher. During the Cultural Revolution, Qi Qiansheng was implicated by his family background, and his brother in Shanghai was also wrongly classified as a rightist, and he did not return to his original unit until 1978. In 1981, the brothers had the first surviving correspondence.
At that time, Qi Qiansheng was 44 years old, not married, and had no friends. One Spring Festival, he told his brother that he "didn't go anywhere, no one came, only spent himself in the small room." ”
He was afraid of loneliness, asked someone to help introduce the object, spent 25 yuan in the magazine to advertise for marriage, the mood is urgent, "Now the age has reached the last moment, otherwise it will become a real lonely old man." ”
Crucially, in May 1988, he informed his brother in a letter, "I am married, and the other party is the comrade from the rural Shandong province that I mentioned to you last time in Beijing." "The wife is 24 years old, has a dignified square face, has permed curly hair, and is tall.
In September, the small family ushered in two more happy events, and he wrote in a cherished and important letter, "I began to become the father of a boy at 11:30 on September 6, and now the child takes the name to ask for your opinion. He was also assigned a one-bedroom apartment in the school's family community, asking his brother how much is a color TV and refrigerator in Shanghai. Is it easy to buy? The first half of a turbulent and anxious life seems to be finally coming to a happy end.
Qi Qiansheng sent his brother a birth photo of his child, a little bit of a small person wrapped in a blue striped swaddle printed with cartoon patterns, and his eyes were dark. This is his most cherished existence, "This is a very beautiful and lovely child, from the time he was born so little that he can almost put it in his bag, growing up to be so big (he is taller than his peers), in the past there was great hope for him, you can say that you love him more than you love yourself." He wrote in the letter, "I almost always want to hold him in my coat pocket. ”
● Xiaoming's birth photo and the proposed name given by his uncle
The child is about 3 years old, and fate has opened a cruel corner. In his letter, he told him that his wife was suffering from systemic lupus erythematosus and was critically ill several times. At the same time, a line of small characters was used to mention Xiaoming on the edge of the letter, which was unusually looming, "It seems that the child's language ability will develop later." ”
It is hard to have breathing space in a life of doom. In the past, Qi Qiansheng loved music, and when he heard others playing the music of the violinist Menuhinla on the train into the city, he couldn't help but be fascinated, and asked his brother to search for violin tapes and corresponding scores accompanied by Menuhin in Shanghai. He also wrote poems, seven-word sentences and sonnets. He is also concerned about the Fermat conjecture, which took more than 300 years for the mathematical community to prove. Now there is no time left.
The news of the resignation of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev came on the radio, but he couldn't help but think of his own life, "A famous musician recalled that his mother taught him the main lesson: to 'struggle' all his life. ”
Within a few years, his wife died of illness. Xiaoming was also diagnosed with autism at the age of 9, and Qi Qiansheng was 60 years old that year and went through retirement. He described his life, "Now I am just taking care of this child, the two seem to be tied together, I am overwhelmed." ”
He got up at 5:30 every morning and sent Xiaoming to elementary school at 7:45 a.m., where he attended only two classes and picked him up at 11 a.m. However, after spending several semesters in the school, he found nothing, xiaoming did not understand what classes and exams were, and even the books were never opened. The other children also took pleasure in making fun of Xiaoming, held out two fingers, and asked what it was? Bob said it was "2". The children who were watching shouted and exclaimed, "These children regard him as a complete idiot." Qi Qiansheng wrote in the letter.
Once, he found that there were bruises around Xiaoming's eyes, and Xiaoming couldn't say how to get them. Qi Qiansheng asked the teacher, and the teacher shirked and said he didn't know. He asked one by one, only to learn that it was another child who was naughty and hurt Xiaoming, "And our children have no sense of protecting themselves at all." ”
He decided to educate Bob at home. Qi Qiansheng often stressed to his brother in his letters that children have great potential. He had spent a month and a half teaching Xiaoming the math of the second grade of elementary school, but only he knew and cared about it. He asked Xiaoming to take the test at home, and then sent the test paper to the child's math teacher for scoring, but the teacher did not want to accept it, thinking that it was written by Qi Qiansheng. Qi Qiansheng said, "Later, I didn't ask her for a blank test paper anymore, these people don't believe that a little idiot like this who probably doesn't even know 1+1=2 can change it all." ”
However, as he grew older, Xiaoming's stereotypical behavior became more and more, and teaching stagnated. The TV set at home is turned on all day, Xiaoming does not watch, but he is absolutely not allowed to turn off, and even can not change the station, after a big fight between the two, Xiaoming is reluctantly willing to let Qi Qiansheng adjust the volume of the TV. He wanted to train Bob's life adaptability and take him into the kitchen, only to have bob move the bowl "back and forth" rapidly, much like what psychiatry calls 'compulsive behavior.'" Worried that he would fiddle with gas and electricity and cause danger, Qi Qiansheng later "could no longer cook in the kitchen, so he had to buy and eat."
He himself became the object of Bob's "control," such as ordering me to read or lie down. "Everything that opens and closes windows and doors, refrigerators, doors, drawers, toilets, etc. needs to be told to do it, otherwise it will not finish with me... To go to the toilet, he must be asked to cover the ring lid on the toilet, etc. No freedom at all. ”
He couldn't help but get angry with Xiaoming, but every time he lost his temper, Qi Qiansheng "just touched the child, thinking of his extremely unfortunate situation: the mother is dead and there is only one old father left." The hardships and pains of the future can hardly survive. ”
There are not times of happiness between father and son. Qi Qiansheng felt that Xiao Ming was not completely unable to understand the emotions of others. He would coax his old father with a slightly flattering smile when Qi Qian was angry. "Sometimes I think it's funny, and he feels funny intensely, so they both laugh a lot." But there are not many such moments.
Relatives suggested that Qi Qiansheng send Xiaoming to a welfare home. He laid out one reason after another for not being able to do so: no money, no suitable welfare homes, and more importantly, "his ordinary life has become a problem without me." ”
Qi Qiansheng asked his brother over and over again in the letter, and also asked himself, "Once I die and leave, what will happen to the child?" ”
● Xiaoming's father wrote a letter in which he told his brother: My child is autistic.
"Autistics" in a broad sense
Qi Qiansheng has lived in Nankou Town all his life, which is far from downtown Beijing and takes more than an hour to enter the city. In March, spring in Beijing doesn't seem to have yet arrived on the land, with bare branches on the side of the road, gray mountains not far away, and a depressed atmosphere everywhere.
The geographical location objectively closed the father and son. Qi Qiansheng tried to send Xiaoming to a professional Peizhi school, but the most recent school was in Haidian District, which could not be boarded, and it took more than two hours to go back and forth. If you live in the city, it is difficult to pay your pension of a few hundred yuan per month.
● Xiao Suo's Nankou Town Street Photo /Li Xiaofang
What is more difficult is actually the sense of spiritual isolation. In the family community of the railway electrification school where Qi Qiansheng worked, father and son are a special pair of existence. The neighbors here all call Qi Qiansheng "Old Master", you ask "Qi Qiansheng", the old neighbors have to react to who this is, when they mention "Old Master", everyone remembers - it is the lonely, taciturn old man who once lived in the fourth unit, and when he was still teaching at school, "as soon as he finished class, packed a clip, he walked home." There are still lessons below, just sit in the office and talk to no one. ”
People have talked about Qi Qiansheng, at the age of 51, marrying a young girl in her 20s. I've also seen a teenage Xiaoming, naked, sitting on a closed window frame, screaming out. Many neighbors still believe that Bob's autism was "captive" by his father.
"This man lectures well, is a bit literary, and the students praise it. He just hasn't liked to communicate with people. Zhang Jiandong, who worked in the school's logistics office, commented. He is 70 years old and has been retired for many years. In his view, Xiaoming's illness was closed out, "not allowed to go out, not allowed to contact with outsiders." ”
Neighbor Zhang Xiuhong, who is also a retired employee of the school, occasionally met Qi Qiansheng going out to buy food in the past, Zhang Xiuhong said, "He never greets people." He only lowered his head and walked silently through the crowd, followed by Xiaoming, who had grown to 1 meter 8 tall, and both of their coats were shiny and shiny that had not been cleaned for a long time.
Zhang Xiuhong remembers that Xiaoming, who was walking behind, would sometimes turn around and smile at the neighbor, "The child may be willing to talk, but his father will not let him, so he drags him away." Zhang Xiuhong sighed, "Unfortunately, that child looks very good, his mother's appearance is not bad, or big and tall." ”
Qi Qiansheng also wrote in the letter that no one poured out his distress. He was eager to connect with and communicate with the parents of other autistic families, and there was another autistic child in Nankou at that time, but Qi Qiansheng said that he had a psychological disorder, "I can't see that other people's children are better than my own." "That child has a complete family, and even the elderly help to take care of it, and has reached the fourth grade of primary school, unlike Xiaoming," the mother died early and was pulled by only a sick and elderly father, and this father was an absolutely helpless person, with neither power nor money. In his letter, he preferred to ask his brother to help contact the autistic family in Shanghai.
Qi Qiansheng was not unaware of what his neighbors had to say about him. He complained to his brother about the gossip around him, and before he got married, everyone was prejudiced against him that he "cut off his children and grandchildren", and after marriage, neighbors said that he still had children at the age of 51.
He was afraid of loneliness, but in this life, he never seemed to get rid of loneliness. At the age of 70, near the end of his life, he dissected himself in a letter, "I seem to be an autistic person in the 'broad sense', I am extremely introverted, timid, lonely, not confident, in fact I have been constantly 'analyzing' myself for decades and fighting this unhealthy state of mind." ”
But he always has a little autonomy, but what about Xiaoming? He wrote a heavy lament, "He has no mother, and if I don't care about him in this world, he is truly completely isolated." ”
He raced against the clock to plan for Xiaoming's future, handled a disabled certificate for his child, saved a sum of money, and looked around to take care of Xiaoming's relatives. In a letter in April 2007, he asked his brother Qi Qisheng, "Can we find a way to live together, because the possibility of a dangerous state at the same time is small, and if there is something wrong, we can at least call 120." Now it is impossible to know how my brother, who was 73 years old at the time, replied to Qi Qiansheng. This is the last letter.
Four years later, Qi Qiansheng died at home. As he initially worried, "The child absolutely does not understand what 'rescue' is, and the misery is self-evident." In the end, the downstairs neighbor found that the door was not closed, pushed the door in, and saw Qi Qiansheng lying motionless on the ground, some of the food in the family had become moldy and maggots, xiaoming stayed by his father's body, and did not react to what happened in the house.
The school once contacted Qi Qiansheng's older brother, who mentioned that he was old, sick, and could not go to the two places, and entrusted the school with full authority to deal with his brother's posthumous affairs and inheritance. All people and things are sealed.
● In the window with a guardrail on the left, it is Xiaoming's former home, which has now been rented out by the nursing home. Photo: Li Xiaofang
Old, forgotten
Twelve square meters, only three beds, a wooden table, the sheets have been used for too long, and they have long been washed to see the original color - this is where Xiaoming shared with two other mentally disabled people in the nursing home. In addition to the room, the activity place is a small boxy yard in front of the house. When it is warm in summer, I can occasionally see him sitting in the courtyard basking in the sun.
After his father's death, he was sent alone to a nursing home, "all the previous photos were cleaned up." People say that they see things and think about things, others have no feelings for him, he is just a living person. Volunteer Xiaowen's mother said.
But ten years later, if you are willing to pay attention, you will find that Xiaoming's body still has traces of his father's efforts to care for and train him.
He can write. Xiaowen's mother recalled, "If he forgets a single word, he will write another word." He was actually a little anxious, he just looked at me, waiting for you to teach him, you can see that he is using his brain in the process of writing. And he was so focused, we timed, 41 minutes, and kept writing. ”
On their next visit, they brought picture books, and Bob could draw flowers and butterflies according to the pattern. Sun Liwei, chairman of the board of directors of Rong'ai Rongle who organized the visit, was surprised, "I can see that he has some potential abilities." Because he later read the family letters, his father let him go to math all the time when he was a child, and he learned the third grade. ”
Because of Qi Qiansheng's 63 family letters gathered together, the parents remade a life file for Xiaoming, and kept his ID information, visit reports, media reports, and photos one by one, one of which was the birth photo that his father clipped in the letter and sent to his uncle, that is, in 1988, the father wrote in the letter, "The child is developing very well, almost two months, very cute, very able to eat and make trouble." ”
Sun Liwei mentioned, "These children are problems at all stages from birth to the end of leaving this world. "They hope to create a system for autistic people who have lost family custody, encourage the government, more non-profit organizations to participate, so that these children are no longer easily forgotten by the world."
In the days to come, volunteers have many plans, and in the spring, they can take Xiaoming to the park for a walk, a bicycle, a flower watching, and take photos and put them in the archive book. It can also take him back to the school where he was a child, the canteen, and the neighborhood where his father lived.
The community is also old, the building is more than 30 years old, although the exterior walls have been repainted, but the window frames are rusty, and the wall skin in the corridor is peeling and mottled. People moved in with joy at first, and on the night of the move, a few special dishes were added to celebrate. Now the whole community is almost forgotten, the average age of more than 70 years old neighbors complained that the community has not been connected to natural gas, often cut off water and electricity, the community does not care, the school does not care.
In ten years, another autistic child appeared in the community, and the neighbors knew that it was the little grandson of Zhang Jiandong of the logistics department. People are talking about Zhang Jiandong is also 70 years old, it is not easy, and he has to take care of the little grandson every day. The little grandson is 10 years old, and he will only stand at the mouth of the alley all day to blow bubbles, and the little people can't read books. But Zhang Jiandong felt, "My little grandson is different from the old master's family." We have to spend more than 10,000 a month going out to class. The old neighbors watched him carry a bag of beans and a few bags of Chinese medicine and walked away, suppressed his voice, and finally sighed for the people: When do you say it is the head?
(At the request of the characters in the text, Ji Chen, Xi Ka, Zhang Jiandong, and Zhang Xiuhong are pseudonyms.) The pictures in the text are from the Shanghai "Letter" Relics Exhibition unless specially marked)
Copyright Notice: All content in this article belongs to Ji Day Studio, and may not be reproduced, excerpted or otherwise used without written permission, unless otherwise stated.
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