Text/Ren Xuemei
After a violent cough, the mother fell asleep. I sat silently beside my mother, looking at her sleeping face and listening to her breathe evenly. The long gastric tube stretched out from the nasal cavity and slid through the corner of the mouth, making it particularly conspicuous. This is my mother.
She lay quietly in bed for three years at once. How many times have I been asking myself, is this my mother-in-law? Is this the mother-in-law who is as fiery as a strong woman? Why is fate so unfair that my mother, who has been doing good all her life, get this disease? How many times I looked at her like this, I couldn't suppress the tears in my eyes. There is always a bumpy and legendary life of my mother in front of my eyes.
Born on December 16, 1949, her mother graduated from late elementary school, and few people at her age could attend school. Because grandpa's family was illiterate, the team did not know which portion of the food was their own, so let my mother go to school, as long as she could know the words. In this way, the mother became the only girl of her age who could go to school.
My mother often told us that in order to go to school, she would get up at dawn in the morning like the adults, and help her grandmother to finish the mill and cut a basket of grass to feed the sheep in the field. You can carry your school bag and run to school while eating breakfast. Despite this, my mother's grades have always been in the top few. After finishing elementary school and preparing for junior high school, my grandfather let my mother drop out of school. Because the mother recognized the words, the grandfather's purpose was achieved. Mothers who didn't go to school enough, when our sisters grew up, put all their expectations on us.
When my mother was sixteen years old, a group of doctors came to my grandmother's village to recruit trainee students and learn acupuncture. Her mother signed up, and because she was admitted to literacy, she began to be exposed to the first medical knowledge. In the eyes of the villagers, my mother became a doctor.
My mother married my father when she was twenty-one years old, because my mother knew how to get married and entered our village clinic. Two years later, when I was ten months old, my mother learned the new law to deliver babies at our local health center. Almost all the children in the eight villages of Ten Miles welcomed them into this world by their mothers. Many people don't know their mother's name, but as long as they say Xuemei her mother, they will give her a thumbs up.
The mother delivered the baby for nearly twenty years and never died prematurely, when there were six people in the health room, and the mother had to see a doctor and get medicine and injections in addition to delivering the baby. Because the three of them were their mothers who had passed the medical qualification certificate. Be conscientious to working mothers and treat patients like loved ones. Her popularity is particularly good, whether it is the elderly or the young daughter-in-law, she is willing to talk to her. Because the mother never said much, just tried her best to help them solve. So that my mother was not at home for more than ten years, people from my hometown came to the pharmacy to buy medicine, and the first thing I said when I saw it was to ask about my mother's recent situation.
Finally surviving until the child is older, she can breathe a sigh of relief. On the morning of August 24, 2007, my mother, who was doing farm work in the field, suddenly suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and although she was out of danger, she was left with sequelae, her right hand could not move, and her right leg was not flexible. The mother left the clinic with deep regret.
Two years after his father's death, the younger brother got married and had children, and the mother went to Beijing to see the children with the nanny. Ten years in a row, the two granddaughters grow up day by day, and every day the video mother always laughs haha. But in July 2018, my mother was hospitalized for cerebral infarction, and my little sister and I accompanied her for a month, and after stability, we were discharged back to Laiwu.
Because my mother and I live in a building, upstairs and downstairs. When I first returned, my mother was able to walk, talk, drink Chinese medicine for a month, acupuncture and physiotherapy for a month, and suddenly suffer a large-scale cerebral infarction in the third month. After several twists and turns in the transfer, my mother became what she is today. The doctor told him that he had lost his chewing function, was paralyzed, and could only spend his life in a hospital bed. The moment I heard the news, I felt like the sky had fallen.
Now my mother is in a stable condition and her consciousness has improved. Because she recognized us, if she asked her where it was uncomfortable, she could hold my hand, and when she was happy, she would look at my face kindly and occasionally open her mouth and smile. In this way, I am already very satisfied, because I still have my mother, my home, and my worries...
This is the first poem I wrote again thirty years later, "Mother-in-Law", which I wrote to my mother, let it be the end of this article!
Mother
Let me gently
Gently place your hand on your hand
娘亲呀
You see who I am
Every time you can squeeze my hand hard
In your silent world
Less than a quarter of the brain cells behind your cerebral infarction
Four children
It's your eternal memory
Gently stroke your face
My mother-in-law
I used to weigh 130 pounds
Now less than 100 pounds
Years have not left marks on your face
Even if the skin is skinny, there are still no wrinkles at the corners of the eyes
O mother of my bodhisattva heart
Cultivate a bodhisattva statue
Oh dear
Just let me keep looking into your eyes like this
Until tears blurred my vision
You looked at me so kindly
I can't lift my arms, I can't stretch my hands
Let my tears flow into a river
Oh my mother-in-law
If possible I'd rather it's me lying here
Four years, four full years
You haven't said a word to us
But I know, I know
You've always wanted to say it to me
Be healthy and live happily
It's hope!