Lao She essay: My mother

My mother's mother's home was in a small village outside the Desheng Gate in Beiping, outside Tucheng'er, on the main road to the Great Bell Temple. There are four or five families in the village, all surnamed Ma. Everyone planted a little bit of land that was not very fertile, but my brothers of the same generation also had soldiers, carpenters, plasterers, and inspectors. Although they were peasant families, they could not afford to raise cattle and horses, and when there were not enough men, women had to work in the fields.

For my grandmother's family, I only know one of the above. I don't know what my grandparents were like, because they've long since passed away. As for the lineage and family history farther away, it is even less known; the poor can only take care of the food and clothing in front of them, and have no effort to talk about the glory of the past: the word "family tree", which I have never heard of at an early age.

My mother was born in a farm family, so she was thrifty and honest, and her health was good. This fact is extremely important, because if I did not have such a mother, I am afraid that I would have greatly discounted it.

My mother got married probably very early, because my eldest sister is now an old woman in her sixties, and my eldest niece is still a year older than me. I have three older brothers and four older sisters, but the only ones who can grow up are the eldest sister, the second sister, and the third brother and me. I am the "old" son. When I was born, my mother was forty-one years old, and my eldest sister and second sister were all out of the cabinet.

Extrapolating from the family that the eldest sister and the second sister married into, before I was born, my family was probably still sloppy. At that time, the engagement was about the right door, and the eldest sister-in-law was a petty official, and the second sister-in-law also opened a tavern, and they were all quite decent people.

But I, I brought misfortune to the family: I was born, and my mother fainted in the middle of the night before she opened her eyes to see her old son, thanks to the eldest sister, who carried me in her arms and did not freeze to death.

At the age of one and a half, I put my father "gram" to death. My brother was less than ten years old, my third sister was twelve or thirteen years old, and I was only one and a half years old, and I was raised by my mother alone. My father's widowed sister lived with us, she smoked opium, she liked to touch cards, she had a terrible temper. For our food and clothing, my mother would wash people's clothes, sew or tailor clothes. In my memory, her hands were bright red and slightly swollen all year round. During the day, she washed her clothes and washed one or two large green tile basins. She never did anything perfunctory, that is, the black cloth socks sent by the butchers, and she also washed them white. At night, she and her third sister held an oil lamp and sewed clothes until midnight. She didn't rest all year round, but in the midst of her busyness, she cleaned up the yard house. The tables and chairs were all old, and the copper work on the cabinet door had long been mutilated, but her hands had always made the broken table top dustless, and the broken copper was glowing. In the courtyard, the pots of pomegranates and oleanders left by my father will always be watered and loved as they deserve, and many flowers bloom every summer.

My brother didn't seem to have played with me. Sometimes he went to school; sometimes he went to apprenticeship; sometimes he went to sell small things like peanuts or cherries. His mother sent him away in tears, and within two days, she picked him up again with tears in her eyes. I didn't understand what it was all about, but I just felt very strange with him. It was me and my third sister who depended on my mother. So they do things, and I always follow behind. They water the flowers, and I fetch water; when they sweep the floor, I pick up the soil... From here, I learned to love flowers, love cleanliness, and keep order. These habits are still preserved by me.

When a guest comes, no matter how embarrassed she is, the mother must also try to get something to entertain. Her uncle and cousins often paid for wine and meat, which made her face blush with shame, but the courtesy to make them warm wine and give her some joy. When there is a happy and mourning event in the home of relatives and friends, the mother will wash her coat clean and go to the homage herself - the gift may be only two small pieces of money. To this day, my hospitable habits have not all changed, although life is so hard, because the things that I have been accustomed to since childhood are not easy to change.

My aunt often lost her temper. She looked for bones in eggs. She is the King of Yama in my family. She didn't die until I was in middle school, and I didn't see my mother resist. "Haven't you been angry with your mother-in-law, and are you still not angry with your sister-in-law?" Destiny! The mother said this when she did not have to explain that it was not enough to subdue others. Yes, fate should be so. Mothers live to be old, poor to old, hard to old, all fate. She suffers the most. To help relatives, friends and neighbors, she always ran ahead: she would wash the baby three times - poor friends could spend less "please grandma" money - she would shave sha, she would shave the children's heads, she would hang the faces of young women... Whatever she could do, she had everything she could ask for. But, quarreling and fighting, never without her. She would rather suffer than be angry. When the aunt died, the mother seemed to cry out all the grievances of the first life, all the way to the cemetery. A nephew who did not know where he came from, claiming to have the right to inherit, his mother did not make a sound, taught him to remove the broken tables and benches, and gave him a fat broiler chicken raised by his aunt.

But the mother is not weak. His father died in the year that Gengzi made a "fist". The coalition forces entered the city and searched for belongings, chickens and ducks, and we were searched twice. The mother pulled her brother and third sister to sit at the base of the wall, waiting for the "ghost" to enter the door, and the street door was open. The "devils" entered the door, stabbed the old yellow dog to death with a bayonet, and then entered the room to search, and after they left, my mother lifted the torn suitcase and found me. If the box hadn't been empty, I would have been crushed to death. The emperor ran away, the husband died, the devils came, and the city was full of blood and flames, but the mother was not afraid, she would protect her children under the bayonet, in the famine. How much chaos there was in Peiping, sometimes there was a mutiny, the whole street market burned, and the fire ball fell in our courtyard; sometimes there was a civil war, the city gate was closed, the shops were closed, and guns were fired day and night. This horror, this nervousness, coupled with the planning of a family's diet and the concern for the safety of her children, is it possible for a weak old widow to bear it? However, at such a time, the mother's heart is crossed, she does not panic or cry, and she has to come up with a way out of no way. Her tears will fall into her heart! This soft and hard character has also been passed on to me. I take a peaceful attitude towards all people and things, and take it for granted that I suffer losses. However, in terms of being a person, I have a certain purpose and basic rules, and I can do anything, and I can't exceed the boundaries I have drawn. I was afraid to see people, to do chores, to show my face, but when I had to go, I didn't dare not go, just like my mother. From private school to elementary school to middle school, I have experienced at least twenty teachers, some of whom have a great influence on me and some who have no influence at all, but my real teacher, who passed on his character to me, is my mother. My mother was illiterate, and what she gave me was the education of life.

When I finished elementary school, my relatives and friends unanimously wanted me to learn my craft so that I could help my mother. I knew I should go and find food to eat to alleviate my mother's hardships. However, I am also willing to go to school. I was secretly admitted to the normal school – uniforms, meals, books, accommodation, all supplied by the school. Only then would I dare to say to my mother about further education. Admission, to pay a deposit of ten yuan, this is a huge amount! My mother did half a month's hard work, raised this huge amount of money, and then sent me out of the door with tears. She toiled as long as her son had a chance. When I graduated from normal school and was assigned as the principal of a primary school, my mother and I did not close our eyes overnight. All I said was, "Later, you can take a break!" Her answer was only a string of tears. After I enrolled in school, my third sister got married. The mother loves her children equally, but if she also has a little preference, she should favor the third sister, because since the death of her father, everything in the family has been supported by the mother and the third sister. The third sister is the mother's right hand, but the mother knows that this right hand must be cut off, and she cannot delay her daughter's youth for her own convenience. When the palanquin came to our broken door, my mother's hands were as cold as ice, and there was no blood on her face—it was April in the lunar calendar, and the weather was very warm, and everyone was afraid that she would faint. However, she struggled, biting her lip, holding the door frame in her hand, and watching the flower car walk slowly. Soon after, my aunt died. The third sister is married, my brother is not at home, I live in school again, and the only thing left in the family is my mother. She still had to do it from morning to night, but no one spoke to her all day. The New Year is coming, just in time for the government to advocate the use of the solar calendar, and the old year is not allowed. Chinese New Year's Eve, I took a two-hour leave and returned from the crowded market to my home in the cold stove. Mother laughed. When she heard that I still needed to go back to school, she froze. It took her half a day to let out a sigh. When it was time for me to go, she handed me some peanuts, "Go, boy! "The street was so lively, but I didn't see anything, and the tears obscured my eyes. Today, tears cover my eyes again, and I remember the lonely Chinese New Year's Eve loving mother of that day. But my loving mother will not wait for me any longer, she is in the ground!

The lives of children do not follow the track set by their parents, so the elderly cannot help but be sad. I was twenty-three years old and my mother wanted me to get married, and I didn't. I invited the third sister to intercede for me, and the old mother nodded her head with tears. I loved my mother, but I gave her the biggest blow. Times have made me a contrarian. At twenty-seven, I went to England. For my own sake, I gave my sixty-something mother a second blow. On the day of her seventieth birthday, I was still far away. That day, according to my sisters, the old lady drank only two sips of wine and went to bed very early. She missed her young son and was inconvenient to say.

After the July 7 War of Resistance, I escaped from Jinan. Beiping was occupied by ghosts like Gengzi in that year, but the young son whose mother was worried about day and night ran to the southwest. I can imagine how my mother misses me, but I can't go back. Whenever I receive a letter from home, I always dare not open it immediately, I am afraid, afraid, afraid, afraid of the ominous news. People, even if they live to be eighty or ninety years old, have a mother and be a little more or less childish. If you lose your loving mother, you are like a flower in a bottle, although it is still fragrant, but it loses its roots. People who have a mother are at peace of mind. I was afraid, afraid, afraid that the letter would bring bad news, telling me that I had lost my roots.

Last year, I couldn't find a letter from home about my mother's living situation. I was suspicious and scared. I imagine getting, no misfortune, thinking of me in exile and loneliness at home, or not being able to bear to tell each other. My mother's birthday was in September, and I wrote a letter in August and a half, calculating that it would arrive before her birthday. The letter instructed me to write down the details of the birthday, so that I would no longer have doubts. On December 26, when I returned from the Cultural Labor Conference, I received a letter from home. I dare not read it. Before going to bed, I opened the letter, my mother has been dead for a year!

Life was given to me by my mother. I was able to grow up to be nurtured by my mother's blood and sweat. I was able to become a person who is not very bad, and I was inspired by my mother. My character, my habits, was passed down from my mother. She had never enjoyed a single blessing in her life, and when she was dying, she ate coarse grains! alas! What else to say? heartache! heartache!