Yi Xuan Yue reading: Remember Grandpa

Remember Grandpa

□ Zhang Tao

A rain made this spring that had just dried up and heat up instantly quiet!

Grandpa's name is Guichun, and his birthday is also very close to the day of Lichun. I think that my grandfather's father gave him this name, probably because there was a year's plan to mean spring, which may also be the hope of all farmers in the agricultural era.

Grandpa's hometown is in Luoyang White Horse Temple. Since I was a child, I have listened to my grandfather that the White Horse Temple is very beautiful, and the surrounding peonies are not only numerous, but also unusually rich in color. At that time, the story of my grandfather was more of a suspicion, and I didn't know that the place outside the Loess Plateau was still very vast. In 2015, a friend proposed to see the peonies in Luoyang, as well as the Shaolin Temple and the White Horse Temple, and I readily agreed. When I returned, I gave my grandfather a detailed description of what I had seen and heard in Luoyang. Grandpa was very happy, constantly saying right and right, and the happy eyes were full of love for his hometown and memories of his childhood! But Grandpa didn't know that peony already had a very international name in Luoyang called the International Peony Festival, and the area of the White Horse Temple had expanded a lot, including not only Chinese bodhisattvas, but also foreign bodhisattvas.

Grandpa was the Central Plains War during the desert to Jingchuan, until a few years ago, I also saw grandpa's bed under a piece of brush shop signboard, it is said that grandpa's ancestors were once counted brush merchants in Luoyang area, and later because of the change of times, the war continued, only to make the family road fall, grandpa every time affectionately touched the wooden board, always sighed.

Listening to my grandmother, after my grandfather's family fled to Jingchuan, they used the last of their home to set up more than a dozen acres of land, and there was a large courtyard, and they lived a quiet pastoral life in that chaotic world. After my grandfather became an adult, my grandmother was married into my grandfather's house as a local bridesmaid, male and female weavers, happy and harmonious, my aunt, uncle and mother were also born, simple and simple but happy life is the most shining memory of my mother when they were children.

The dust of the times fell on ordinary people is a mountain, and Grandpa and Grandma naturally failed to escape that stormy era. Grandpa's family was characterized as landlords, and then it was the special treatment of that era, collecting houses and collecting land, and decentralizing rural transformation.

Therefore, from the time I remember, my mother always had to take me from Chongxin to a place called Jingchuan Dangyuan whenever I had time. In the 1980s, transportation resources were still very scarce, and my mother took me to squeeze into a dilapidated shuttle, rocked for three or four hours, and then thrown to the side of the road, followed by a dozen miles of mountain roads. Such a long journey was extremely uncomfortable for me as a young man. So I was very disgusted, and I didn't want to go when I walked, crying and asking my mother to hold me or put it on my back. By the time I woke up, I had arrived "quickly" at my grandfather's house. As soon as I entered the door, there was always a whole bunch of delicious food waiting for me. Grandpa saw that I was always very happy to shout my nickname, praising me for growing taller and better again! I didn't have time to pay attention to this boring old man in the fruit my grandmother brought and the sweets that my aunt brought from the "big place." Grandpa then stood by and looked at me and didn't speak. Grandma will shout, go do your business, keep an eye on Gansani who looks at the baby! Grandpa would laugh twice and walk away, then go out for a walk, turn around, and take out a few fruits or dried fruits from his pocket, so I said thank you loudly (Jingchuan dialect, Grandpa's meaning), Grandpa laughed even more happily, "This is delicious, the baby eats all grows", said with his back to his hand, and walked away proudly with a figure eight step. Grandpa could not guess at the time, his grandson actually grew up to eat, and finally grew from a dry and emaciated child to a greasy uncle with a big belly.

Later, after the end of the Cultural Revolution, My Grandfather and Grandmother were rehabilitated. Until the 1990s, Grandpa and Grandma finally left the countryside where they had lived for more than 30 years and returned to the city, but the house had been destroyed, the real estate was gone, and the grandfather and grandmother of the ancient age lived a poor and comfortable old age under the support of their three children. I also went to school, worked, got married, had children. Every time I went back, my grandfather still said those few words, and I still had a silent response, but every time I took my son back to visit them, I saw from his face the way my grandfather looked like when he was a child. Unfortunately, he could no longer make those delicious things to attract his great-grandchildren, and even if they did, his great-grandchildren abandoned them as if they were hidden, which made his grandfather very embarrassed. When I scolded my son, my grandfather tried his best to stop him. I know that I can't blame my son too much, he is 81 years away from his grandfather, something that is very precious in the eyes of his grandfather, but he has become accustomed to it and even can't look at it.

A year before my grandfather died, my eldest cousin and eldest cousin returned from Germany with two sons, and my second cousin also flew back from Korla to reunite. In the evening, the three of us brothers opened a bottle of wine, the second brother did not drink, I and the eldest touched cup by cup, sometimes reminiscing about childhood, sometimes bragging about all kinds of anecdotes and anecdotes they saw, until eleven o'clock, Grandpa and Grandma sat next to us and watched us, we laughed, they also laughed, when we did not laugh, we focused on looking at the three 'bald' in their mouths, the little farts who had been naughty and mischievous under their wings, and in the blink of an eye, they had established a family, thousands of miles apart...

Grandpa left in the afternoon of March 28, 2018, and I was stunned when I received a call from my uncle. Although my family has said it many times before, I am instantly irritable and lost! I also know that grandpa did not suffer when he left, and in the morning of leaving, he ate a bowl of noodles as usual, and the buns sent by the neighbors were to be left in the afternoon to be enjoyed slowly! But the medicine I bought for him had not yet been taken, and he had not finished reading the newspaper I had sent him.

Grandpa is gone, Grandpa was born in the spring, and he died in the spring, I don't know if this is the reincarnation of all things! However, he can no longer greet me in Jingchuan dialect with a slight Henan accent, he can no longer bring me good food with his dry hands, he can no longer tell me stories from old plays, he can no longer take me to play on the country roads, he can no longer listen to his grandchildren tell those anecdotes! Just one side of the loess, let him leave us forever!

Last night, I seemed to dream of my grandfather, a slightly white blue mountain suit, a bent back because of perennial labor, two hands behind me, legs are also a little bent, smiling at me slightly...

Grandpa, may you rest in peace in heaven!

——Grandson Zhang Tao wept blood and wrote in the morning of March 31

About the Author

Zhang Tao is currently the head of the Propaganda Department of the Pingliang Municipal Party Committee. He has been engaged in news and publicity work for a long time, and has organized and planned a number of large-scale theme publicity activities in the city. He once served in the township for two years, and then as the leader of the village help team in the village for two years, he achieved the overall poverty alleviation of the village on schedule, and the team was commended by the province and the municipal commendation.