Author: Noble Victory
The appearance of those hands often appears in front of my eyes: five fingers are thick and short, the palms of the hands are thick cocooned, and the back of the hands is covered with cracks, like chicken feet, rough and unbearable. It was my mother's hand, and every time I thought about it, tears filled my eyes.
Grandma died early, the mother was a baby with no heartache since childhood, when she was a few years old, she began to herd cattle, the wind came and went in the rain, there was no medical condition, and she fell into the problem of asthma for many years, becoming a "bun". The autumn weather turned cold, the mother's asthma began to attack, the father fried granular coarse salt wrapped in a small pocket, trampled on the mother's back, only for a moment to alleviate. Starting to drink Western pills can start the role, and then taking medicine is still ineffective, black understand the night of panting, coughing, often coughing and breathless, sometimes the face is like earth. When I was a child, I woke up in the middle of the night and slept with my mother's tight cough and wheezing. Sometimes I feel that if I cure my mother's epilepsy, I can give people a board for a year. One of the worst coughs triggered a heart attack that nearly took the life of her mother. The next year the weather is warm, and the coughing and wheezing can be relieved. Year after year, the illness accompanied her mother throughout her life, and she could not be cured until she died.
The mother is not in good health, but she is a strong person, and she never wants to fall behind in her work. All year round, sunny and rainy, the body can move and keep busy. Not only did he work hard himself, but he also called on and even "forced" us sisters to work together. This experience has greatly shaped my personality, acute, walking almost trotting, suspecting that others are grinding and chattering, and hating people as "meat worms" at every turn. In those years of the production team, my mother dragged the sick body, and like everyone else, she came back at dawn, chopped pig grass to feed the pigs, cooked rough food to eat, and after we shredded babies to sleep, she did needlework under the dim oil lamp. The clothes of the four seasons, the cotton single, and the shoes on the feet all rely on the mother's hands to sew and sew one stitch at a time. Growing up in such a family environment, our sisters were not picky eaters and did not pay attention to dressing. In winter, it is dark and early, and it is usually a family sitting around the fire to peel the grain ears or oil tung seeds. Xiao Wa's hands were tender, and it didn't take long for her hands to hurt fiercely, there was a slight pause, and her mother scolded us not to stop, and said that even if we peeled for a few days, the cocoon on her hands would not hurt.
In those years, the land was barren, the harvest was not good, and the grain was the staple food for subsistence, from ploughing, sowing, interspersing, grass, fertilization, breaking ears, drying, peeling grain seeds, pushing and grinding into bao grain ginseng, before and after half a year, more than a dozen processes, not allowing half a bit of laziness. People are coaxing for a while, coaxing people for a season, and if they slack off a little, they will go hungry if they can't get their food back. Peel off the shell of the tung seed, and the oil tung seed can be counted in the production team for a little work point and more money. The embarrassment of that time is now unimaginable, and sometimes it is difficult to even buy matches, and you can only earn some pocket money by peeling the shells of the tung seeds, picking the shells of acorns, picking honeysuckles, and digging fire vine roots. As a teenager, I complained a little about this "compulsion" of my mother: other people's mothers and sons are not like this, why are they so mean? When you become a family and raise children, you naturally understand the good intentions in it: to survive, you have to rely on your own hands to earn.
During the harvest season when the land came to the household, my mother led our sisters to dig the ground, spread manure, sow seeds, carry, and harvest; between the agricultural leisure, my mother had to cook rice, beat straw shoes, sew clothes and make shoes. Inside and outside the house, all by the mother's hands constantly digging and scratching, planing food in the soil, recovering the food for the family, sewing out clothes to cover the body, and making dozens of meals... After decades of uninterrupted labor, the mother's back was hunched, her hands were seriously deformed, her wrists were stiff, her fingers were not straight, she could not hold them, and the skin on the back of her hands was a little ugly. Later, the family conditions improved, and they all advised her not to be so bitter anymore, and her mother continued to work as usual until she was bedridden with cancer. "Man only dies of illness, not of exhaustion," was the mantra that my mother often reprimanded us. Influenced by their mothers since childhood, the sisters have no arrogance, hate flower racks the most, and do not want to be opportunistic, but only know how to live by their own hard work.
My mother, who had never been to school, was illiterate, did not understand the great principles of how to behave in the world, and was very tough. At that time, life was not rich, the broken babies felt hungry all day, and occasionally pulled wild vegetables and grain to boil thin and mushy for food, but there were crops from the production team in front of the house and behind the house, and there were black fungus sticks on the hillside, which did not dare to move. Occasionally, with the cattle herding partners, they secretly broke the grain and ears of the production team and burned them, and their hearts were terrified to death, afraid that their parents would know, or they would be beaten violently. The mother repeatedly nagged, what to do, you must be tough, can not be a thief touched the foot, otherwise no one can afford it. I sometimes think, in some ways, that a tough personality may be a flaw in life, and who doesn't ask for someone? But self-reliance and self-improvement are fundamental, they are unable to support the pig intestine, by shaking their heads and tails to ask for farewell, but also mud can not be on the wall.
In the years when I was seven or eight years old, every year in the second and third months of the lunar calendar, occasionally beggars with pestle sticks passed by, dragging dolls, carrying bamboo satchels, and their faces were like vegetables. My eldest sister and I were at home, really scared to death, hurriedly closed the door and inserted the latch, lying on the crack of the door to watch the beggar helplessly walk away, and still afraid of not working. When the mother saw them at home, she would usually open the cellar not far behind the house with both hands, pick up a few turnips with velvet roots, and then scoop a small melon and scoop the grain into the beggar's small cloth pocket, and after the beggar left, the mother sighed and wiped her tears and said, Are they neighbors behind Liang Qianshan, save your life, not to step down, who is willing to come out to beg for rice. Sometimes I hate the roughness of the meal and do not eat, my mother split her head and cover her face and shout, in February and March, when there is food to eat, I will take a stick to beg for rice! As a result, the suffering of childhood is engraved in the mind for life and becomes a lingering demon.
At the beginning of that summer, my mother felt a little stiff in her neck, and massaged it with her hands, a small egg bump, not smooth and not moving, and I couldn't help but cough a little out of my understanding of medical common sense. Go to the hospital for examination, malignant tumors. The disease continues to devour the mother's body, the tumor block continues to grow, spreading throughout the body, the mother's life is coming to an end step by step, watching the relatives who gave birth to her being so tortured, the mood is really indescribable. Even so, the mother still did not stop her hands and planted two acres of rape on the slope behind the house, which became the mother's last labor season. As the eldest son, I had to run around to earn money and make a living, and I couldn't let go of my mother's illness, during that time, I answered the phone call from my second sister, and my heart was beating a drum, but I had to contact me at any time. Sixteen or seventeen years after my mother's death, my mother's face became increasingly blurred, but the impression of my mother's hands in my mind became more and more profound.