Text/Ma Lingjun
These days, I always dream of my mother, and I often wake up with tears wet pillows.
One night, I dreamed of my mother again.
In the old house and old yard where there is no demolition, I have to go to work in the morning, my mother brought a bowl of freshly brewed egg tea for me to drink, I was too hot to drink, my mother stirred the egg tea with chopsticks hard, so that the egg tea was quick and cool.
I walked to the door of the courtyard, and my mother strode over and muttered, "It's cold, the egg tea is cold!" "My mother handed me the bowl, and I reluctantly took the bowl and took a big gulp, and my mother looked at me with a kind smile on her face...
Suddenly, for some reason, my dream was interrupted, and I seemed to be still immersed in the dream, looking around for my mother, and I shouted as I looked: "Mother... Mother..."
When I realized that I had just been dreaming, I cried like a child and kept saying, "Mother! Mother, why did I only meet you in my dreams? My mother... Why? ”
In this world, I know that I will never see my mother again. I can only pray that my mother and father will not be tired and not worry in the other world, because when you are alive, you will contribute the most to us and worry the most.
Time flies so fast, and in a few months it will be the day of the mother's sacrifice, and it will be 12 full years since my mother left us. Usually, I dare not remember my mother, for fear of touching my biggest sore spot and putting myself in the most painful ordeal for a long time.
Mother is always our lingering memory, if time can travel, I am willing to go back to the past, back to the time when there was a mother, but... Can all this go back? Can time be turned back? I can only meet and talk to my mother in my dreams.
I was the first child in the family, and after my mother had me, she quit her official job to take care of me.
I remember one Spring Festival, my mother dressed me like a girl, smeared rouge on my face, carried me to relatives and shops, and acquaintances asked my mother: "Who are you holding?" ”
"This is my son!" Mother said proudly.
I remember when I was five or six years old, in the house where we lived, by the charcoal-burned stove of the brick base, my brother and I were always pestering my mother to tell stories, and we listened to it over and over again. Even if my mother tells repetitive stories, we are willing to listen to them, but we can't hear enough of them.
When I grew up, I learned that the stories my mother told were all movies she had watched, and the content was very similar to the movie plots of "Wildfire Spring Wind Fighting Ancient City", "Fighting Invaders", "Bitter Cauliflower" and so on.
At that time, during the New Year,My parents gave me less money, only enough to read a few little books, and after I had no money, my mother took the money with me and went to a private bookstore to read the little people's books.
My mother led me out of the alley, and two or three shops to the south were where I read villain books. I remember there were two or three villain bookstores on Center Street. After entering the store, my mother arranged for me to be the owner of the shop and went home to do housework.
Now I still remember the appearance of this villain bookstore, the store is not large, there are a few benches, there is no light, the cover of the villain book is wrapped in thick kraft paper, and the name of the villain's book and the serial number of the book are neatly written with a brush. The owner, who is in his 50s, opened a box full of villain books and picked out a few books and said, "These little people's books are suitable for children." ”
I took these villain books, saw half of them and looked at another, and half of them looked at another book, and I wanted to read these villain books in the shortest possible time.
The owner looked at me like this, smiled and said to me: "Read the books one by one, so that the story is coherent."
I nodded and looked at them one by one, immersed in the plot of the villain book.
By looking at the paintings and calligraphy of villains, I gradually increased my love for literature, and today I can publish literary works and listen to stories and read villain books at that time.
The mother was thrifty and capable. After having a younger brother and sister in the family, it was obvious that the family's difficulties could not be solved by relying on the father's salary, and the mother used knitting sweaters to fill the family life in addition to the housework during the day.
In order to catch up with the Spring Festival, my mother often knitted sweaters until late at night, and how many times I woke up, I saw my mother covering her body with a quilt and knitting a sweater with her upper body leaning against the wall. Chinese New Year's Eve this day, when eating the New Year meal, my mother still did not stop knitting sweaters. At that time, there were only a few people who could wear sweaters, and only in the autumn and winter were there anyone looking for sweaters, although this work was hard, but there were not many people looking for sweaters, and the money naturally did not earn much.
One summer, my mother, who could not ride a bicycle at that time, carried a sorbet box to sell sorbets, and because there were many fixed stalls nearby, in order not to rob others of their business, my mother had to go to the more lucky factory school to sell sorbets in the countryside. Almost every day, I get up early in the morning and get in line to batch sorbets. In order to earn more money, my mother batched sorbets several times a day and came home very late. When she returned home, her mother was scattered and didn't even want to eat.
I now think that if I were older, how nice it would be to be able to share the burden for my mother! Then a little bit will do!
My mother was tired and did not complain, and every time she left home with an ice cream box, she always smiled and told me to look after my brother. When I was busy, my mother ate outside at noon, holding a large porcelain tea jar with vegetables and rice inside, and wherever she was hungry, she ate wherever she went.
Hot sorbets are best sold in the weather, the mother's face is blackened by the sun, the sound of selling sorbets is shouted for a long time, and the mother's voice is also dumb.
The hard-earned money, the mother is reluctant to melt, the money is accumulated little by little, every time the family needs money, the mother can solve the urgent need.
Father said more than once: "Your mother can really save money, she is so good at living!" ”
Not only did the father say it, but the people in the neighborhood also said that the mother would save it. Even so, when the neighbor needed to borrow money, the mother did not say a word, no more, less, and never said a word.
After all, selling sorbets is a seasonal job, and a year later my father found a job for my mother, washing quilts, making bed sheets, removing quilts, and putting quilts in the hostel owned by my father's catering service company, a job that was paid daily, which was called "family work" at that time.
The biggest feature of this job is that the morning shift leaves work late. Every day, my mother had to get up early and return late. In the winter, the bed is slow to be dried, and the mother often goes home after dark.
At that time, the working environment was poor, and the washing sheets were often in the courtyard where there were water pipes. Entering the winter when the wind was cold and frozen, the mother was still dry in the yard, and because there was no equipment to block the wind, the mother left the root of the disease of waist pain and handache on a cloudy day.
During the Spring Festival, there are few tourists, it is the best time to dismantle the bed quilt, wash the bed is good, the mother will go to work after the first day of the New Year, the father is busy in the restaurant, there is a person who eats without work, most of the people who come to eat during the Spring Festival are out of town, we often sleep after a night, and are woken up by the parents who come back to eat.
How many times have I eaten dinner in the sleepless, sometimes eating and falling asleep again.
After the reform, the family was well-off, and after his father retired, he opened a restaurant on Jiefang North Road, relying on his father's craftsmanship, and the hotel was thriving. After my mother stopped "family work" for nearly two decades, she became a helper in the restaurant.
The mother is a warm-hearted person, helping to broker the marriage of several pairs of people, the mother did not accept a gift from them, among them there are more difficult, the mother also took the initiative to cushion them out of the way back. They said this about their mother, saying that she was a person who was willing to help people.
The white colt crossed the gap, and I suddenly noticed that my mother was getting older. I remember the second Spring Festival after my father's death, and the last Spring Festival we had with my mother. When she was Chinese New Year's Eve, her mother made another mistake, her hands could not be lifted, and she could not stand in pain. We hired a masseuse at home to massage my mother, but it didn't work well. The next day, after a day of treatment at the Municipal Women's And Children's Hospital, my mother didn't feel that much pain.
When my mother got home, she lay on the bed, looked at us uneasily and said, "This year has not made you have a stable life, and now I am much better, you make some dishes and eat well." I shook my mother's hand and said, "Mother, you can rest assured!" We will definitely take good care of you! I couldn't say anything more, I went to the other room and looked at the portrait of my father, thinking about my mother's uncomfortable look, I "whimpered" and cried loudly, I had never cried so much pain.
A few months later, my mother was gone, gone so suddenly that we felt that we had not yet come and had a good filial piety.
"The tree wants to be quiet and the wind is not stopping, and the son wants to raise and not to be kissed." If there is an afterlife, I will still be your son, I will honor you well..., I want to tell you now, our brothers and sisters are very good, we have grandchildren, you said that you want to live to see your grandchildren grow up, why? Why? Didn't your wish come true?
Mother, if there is a heaven, we will meet, and I will be filial to you and your father!
(Image from the Internet)
【About the Author】Ma Lingjun is a member of the China Public Security Writers Association, a member of the Shandong Provincial Writers Association, a member of the Zaozhuang Writers Association, and the vice chairman of the Shizhong District Writers Association. He has published literary works and novels in national provincial and municipal publications.
Sponsored by the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Society, Contemporary Prose is a bimonthly prose journal, which mainly publishes the works of members of the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association, and welcomes Shandong prose writers to apply to join the Shandong Provincial Prose Association. The Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association holds various prose activities throughout the year to provide book publishing services for writers. Contact number: 18653131587; submission email: [email protected]
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