Missing my father
Text/Li Xuegang
(Web Photo)
My father was an authentic farmer, loyal and diligent all his life, bright and upright, living peacefully in the countryside by sweating, and raising the three of us sisters with hard work. My father died of illness in early October 2016, at the age of 59, not yet in his year, and his departure brought me irreparable wounds and irreparable regrets.
Mentioning my father's life experience makes people sigh. When my father was five years old, my grandfather died of hunger, and the already poor family was even worse, and my grandmother struggled to live with my father, who was only five years old at the time, and my aunt, who had just turned eleven. Listening to my father, sometimes in order to survive, my grandmother led him and his aunt to other people's homes to beg for food, and they were met with a lot of blank eyes and sarcasm, and they really suffered from the sneers of others, and they tasted the hardships of life and the cold of the world prematurely. Even more unfortunately, the grandmother who devoted everything she had to raising her father died in her fifties, which made my father even more grief-stricken and heartbroken, when his father was only fifteen years old. At that time, the aunt was already married, the father's uncle and aunt had already fled to the northeast in order to survive, and the lonely father was not only helpless and uncared for, but also often bullied by his uncles and brothers. They regard their father as a thorn in their eye and a thorn in their flesh, and often speak harshly to him, and when they can't bear it, their humiliated father will also fight with them when he can't stand it, and the result is naturally outnumbered, and he ends up with a blue nose and a swollen face. My father's second uncle (my second uncle and grandfather) who was far away in Heilongjiang came back to visit his relatives, and saw that his father's situation was really unbearable, and his life could not be maintained, so he asked his father's consent and took his father to Heilongjiang to live. In this way, when my father was sixteen years old, he was forced to make a living and went to Heilongjiang, where he was not familiar with life. My father spent four years in Heilongjiang. The second uncle's grandfather's family was originally fleeing to the past, there were many children, often not enough to eat, not warm, often hungry, barely enough to survive, after adding the father's mouth, it was even more stretched, and the difficulties of life can be imagined. In the past four years, my father has endured unimaginable hardships for ordinary people, carried out extraordinary heavy labor in an extremely harsh environment, and sometimes even fought with the god of death. These four years have made my father mature and strong, so that my father is no longer afraid of any difficulties and obstacles in life, and always bravely and unswervingly!
My twenty-year-old father faced a crucial moment in his life and was about to start a family. He clearly realized that Heilongjiang was not a place to stay for a long time, and he had to return to his hometown in Shandong. In this way, he reluctantly waved tears to bid farewell to his relatives in Heilongjiang, and returned to his hometown in Shandong province after four years of separation single-handedly and empty-handedly. When he returned home, his father still had nothing, but he worked hard and stubbornly lived with his industrious hands. His father's steadfastness, loyalty and kindness have won him a good reputation, and he has gained a long-lasting beautiful love. When my father was twenty-two years old, he met his mother through a matchmaking. The mother felt that although her father was poor, he was brave, not afraid of hardship, and worthy of trust, so she did not hesitate to marry him. The father was grateful to his mother, and the two had been married for thirty-seven years, and had been wholeheartedly good to their mother and did their best to maintain the family.
Perhaps it is this tragic, unfortunate, poor and miserable life experience that has created the father's stoic, hard-working character. When my father returned to his hometown at the age of twenty, he followed the construction team to build a house, which was more than thirty years. He began by moving bricks and working with ash, and slowly became a master with a knife. Over time, my father had developed a superb skill. He built the wall without thread, and the naked eye saw that the high wall was straight; what kind of half-brick was needed, the father could hold it just right as long as the knife fell in his hand, and the bricks he hit were just right; the father grinded the cement floor smooth and smooth, and there was no pothole in the look. It is precisely because of his father's meticulous work and exquisite craftsmanship that he has won praise from the mouth. He himself was a contractor foreman, leading a construction team for those years, and some house builders had to contract work to their fathers even if they were ten days and a half at night, and his father was often overwhelmed, busy, and exhausted. The work on the construction team was not punctual, and every day they always hurried out at less than seven o'clock in the morning, and returned home in the dark at night. Especially in the scorching summer, every day is sweaty, washed in water, and worked for nearly twelve hours. Fifty or so people, and doing such a heavy labor every day, my father was also tired, and he often had back pain. But my father still insisted on working every morning and returning late, and he never stopped working until he had to. I repeatedly advised my father to rest for two days, saying that he was overdrawing his body so desperately that he would exhaust his body. But my father always disagreed, shook his head lightly, and pretended to be relaxed: "It's okay, I'm in good health, I can still do it in the past few years, a little more work is a little, and when I'm old, I can't move, and I don't have a chance to do it." ”
My father's life was full of hardships and suffering, and it was the painful experience of eating up and down and often starving, which made my father develop the fine quality of thrift and thrift. The clothes he wore were all worn by me, and some of them were torn and badly washed after I wore them for several years, but my father didn't mind. Let the mother sew it up, still put it on and go out to work. Although the work was very tiring, my father was reluctant to eat, and often cut a large bowl of pickles and ate them for two days. Sometimes when we are at home, the meal will be greatly improved, every time we make a few delicious dishes, my father rarely moves chopsticks, and when we repeatedly urge him to eat vegetables, he will symbolically eat a few bites. When the vegetables could not be eaten and were to be poured out, the father would disregard the obstacles, take a bowl, soak the steamed buns in it, and clean it up together with the vegetable soup. Many times we advised him not to eat the dish when it was broken, so as not to get sick after eating it. But my father was always reluctant to waste, and he insisted on eating it until the dish really could not be eaten. Father said: "At that time, I was poor, sometimes I would be hungry all day, and many times I would not have food, but now although the conditions are good, I can't waste it, and I must know how to cherish it!" "I know that my father came from a hard life, and I can't imagine his life when he was young, but I know that he is really not easy, and I can understand his feelings.
In that era, because of extreme poverty and the departure of relatives one after another, his father could only graduate from junior high school and had no choice but to suspend his studies and leave his hometown for Heilongjiang, which also caused his father's irreparable regret in this life. I heard that my father studied hard when he was in school and had excellent grades, and I was convinced of this. His father knew a lot of things in the countryside, and he could arrange marriages and funerals in an orderly manner, write and calculate the scores without bad scores, put them on the village, and have a very good set of dances and inks. Therefore, when other people's families have something to do, they are always the first to call him to help, and the father is always happy to respond to requests and come. Because his father was warm-hearted and charitable, he did everything perfectly and satisfactorily, and he had a high reputation in Zhuangshang.
The hardships of survival forced my father to vow to provide for my education. In today's social conditions, this is a shortcut out of suffering. But the poor family situation and my inability to achieve up and down, so that there is always a hard distance between the beautiful dream and the cold reality, its seemingly insurmountable stubbornness makes me extremely depressed, and makes my father more helpless behind the encouragement of me. Whenever the thought of giving up came to mind, I was always defeated in my father's helpless eyes and the cold-eyed posture of the townspeople, and I really couldn't bear to extinguish his sad and pitiful last bit of hope. In such a situation, all that remains is redoubled effort and the anxiety of hating yourself for making too slow progress. At this time, my father seemed to have found his best state, in the tireless rush and the endless labor, my every insignificant progress was always magnified by him several times, like a major festival, remembered in his heart, and then transformed into the endless motivation of the next round of labor. So when I first knew the word "sweet as a gluttony," the first thing that came to my mind was my father, that is, the interdependence of our family during that difficult time, and my own laughter and tears at that unbearable stage of life.
Later, I finally lived up to my father's expectations, went to college as I wished, and successfully became a people's teacher after graduation. I still remember when I passed the teacher recruitment exam organized by the county and became a teacher in the staff, my father was finally relieved. On that day, he was always quiet and calm, and he could no longer hold back the joy in his heart, rushed out of the house with great interest, and walked twice in the village happily, picking crowded places with many people, and talking to others with flying eyebrows, and his proud expression was fully revealed. At noon, a person at home poured himself a drink, muttered to himself during the period, and drank a mess. I heard my mother say that my father still chattered at night, saying that although he had suffered all his life, his parents had died early, and he had been looked down upon by others since he was a child, but the children were still angry, this life was worth living, and there was no regret when he died.
Unexpectedly, the father of the nearly old Hua Jia actually suffered the bad news that followed. First, he was diagnosed with advanced esophageal cancer, underwent major surgery, and underwent a life-and-death test. Immediately afterward, his mother, who was in love with his father, died of illness, which made him even more grief-stricken, resulting in an aggravation of his illness. Later, his father, who felt hopeless, refused to accept treatment and died under the torment of illness.
It has been more than five years since my father's death, and my father's voice and smile haunt my eyes, making me unable to sleep at night, sad and weeping. I have done my best to prolong my father's life, and unfortunately there is no more time to spend with my father in his last days. Father, are you okay in heaven? Is there a sparse place for life, is there a car coming and going? Father, there is a song you have not heard, I have not done enough to be your children in this life, and I beg you to be my father in the next life.
Father, go all the way!
【About the author】Li Xuegang, male, member of the Communist Party of China, born in July 1983, bachelor degree, primary and secondary school teacher, is currently a primary school language teacher and director of language disciplines in Yanggu County. He usually loves to read and write, and has published many articles in provincial and county publications such as "Shandong Education", "Liaocheng Education", "Yanggu Education", etc., and has guided students to participate in city-level and county-level essay competitions with remarkable results, and has been rated as "Excellent Guidance Teacher" for many times.