Old Madman (1924-2019) Hubei, county supply and marketing cooperative cadre
In March 2019, the old madman left us forever at the age of 95.
On the third Qingming Festival after the old madman's death, I went back to my hometown to see him, walked through the muddy and winding mountain road, walked through the deep artemisia grass, and came to the grave full of weeds. He was my grandfather, and according to the custom of his hometown, my grandmother was still alive and could not build a cemetery for him. The wilderness was windy, and I stood there not knowing why I was crying, for him or for himself.
Life is a process, death is not the end of life, forgetting is.
But I dreamed of Grandpa several times in the past few days. In the dream, I was still a child, with a bad temper, and I especially liked to bite people when I lost my temper, and at that time, every day after school, people came to the house to argue, and my grandparents sat at the door and apologized to people. Later, every time I was unhappy, he reached over and gave me a bite, where did I know the weight when I was a child, grandpa also learned to be smart, while reaching over and saying, you bite lightly.
Grandpa was not a celebrity or a big man, but everyone in his hometown knew him—the "old madman."
There are three old madmen and three brothers and sisters, the younger sister is lost at an early age, the younger brother died of poverty, and his father died when he was a minor, neither uncle nor brother. Poverty made him and his mother dependent on each other, herding cattle, mowing grass, or begging for money for the landlord's family; poverty also made him go through a period of good luck after liberation, participated in the land reform movement, had enthusiasm and passion, and was absorbed as a member of the county land reform committee, from township to town, from town to county, and finally became a small cadre of the county supply and marketing cooperative. Then the "anti-rightist" and "Cultural Revolution", he fell to the west in that gust of strong wind in the Middle East and fell into prison. After being rehabilitated, he regained his freedom, and after the reform and opening up, he returned to the county supply and marketing cooperative, but he had no education, had experience in labor reform, never had a serious job, and soon retired.
When I was born, most of these things had passed, the old madman was 50 years old, people had become stubborn, moody, sometimes talking about five thousand years, sometimes incoherent nonsense, sometimes three or two days, sometimes ten and a half days, wandering the world, not asking questions about their children, not taking their wages home. Between the ages of 60 and 70, his family rarely saw him, and his six children were raised almost by their grandmother. Fathers and aunts always complained about these things. Therefore, the children and grandchildren are called grandpa and old madman, which is both a joke and a complaint.
I also called him an old lunatic, but the old madman treated me more dearly than he did to his own daughter.
I was raised by him, when I was a child living in Dabie Mountain, I didn't want to walk the mountain road, the old madman carried me, I lay on his back and slept precariously. Once he also drove a few cars to the school to bring me clothes. When I was 17 years old, my mother died, he was afraid that my sister and I would be wronged, do everything to be good to us, enlighten us, in order to protect me and my sister and quarrel with my father, until later I encountered setbacks in business, he also told me all the way, life must look forward.
To a large extent, the character of the old madman influenced me. We all do not accept defeat, we are all persistent, we must do it immediately when we see a thing, and we are not accustomed to anyone and will never please. The old madman is famous in the area of his hometown, and one of the reasons is that he will not flatter, and if he is not used to it, he will not be accustomed to it, and he will never cover it up. So he became a "madman." The old madman himself did not care, he accepted the title frankly, and said to everyone, including his children, "I do not depend on you for food." ”
Later, I also lived like him into difficulties, uprooted from home, and was not understood by the people around him. I can understand his madness, his madness, his madness. He is crazy on the surface, but in fact he sees the world thoroughly, and he is not accustomed to the people around him and has no choice.
We have been living together for more than forty years, and even when I moved from Dabie Mountain to Guangzhou, I picked him up every year to live with him.
The old lunatic got really old afterwards. After the age of 80, the body is not as good as a day, after 90 years old, the old madman fell down, the hip joint fracture, poor recovery can only rely on a wheelchair to move. By the last few years he was completely demented and half-demented, and his emotions could not be controlled. I sealed the doors and windows of the room where he lived, and had to fasten his hands and feet to the bed at night and wear special gloves so that he wouldn't scratch himself. He didn't know his children at first, but whenever I went, he would hug me and say, "My precious granddaughter is coming," and talk to me about something.
Sometimes I think that he didn't recognize his children on purpose, and didn't bother to take care of those things, so he pretended not to know them.
The end point is approaching, the hospital is unable to return to heaven, when we want to send him back to his hometown, he is full of tears, unwilling to leave, afraid that we will give up on him. The ambulance was driving from Guangzhou back to Dabie Mountain, and before getting on the bus, he told his grandmother to help him get dressed and put on his favorite hat. He pays great attention to the image, and all his life he likes to be very energetic and handsome.
The old madman stayed in the intensive care unit of his hometown hospital for a week, and then stayed in his own home for five days, and the grain of rice could not enter, but could only hang oxygen. But he still lived tenaciously, and when he heard his children playing mahjong outside, he sat up and said he was going to play a game together, "I don't live too much for five more years," he said. He also said he was going to watch my son go to college.
He was reluctant to go.
When I entered his room on the last day, he suddenly opened his eyes, grabbed my hand, and first said to the gentleman next to me, "My granddaughter is a good person, but she has a bad temper, you don't dislike her, you just live with her." Then he said to me, "Your husband is a very good person, don't give him a tantrum." Your son and daughter are very well-behaved and obedient. "I know that the old madman is thinking about my happiness, and I know that it is not easy for me to do business, from Hubei to Guangzhou to start from scratch, the scenery in front of people, and the difficulty after people."
At that time, everyone thought that the old madman had eased up, but I understood that he had dried up the oil lamp, and when he was finished, he left.
"Relatives or sorrows, others have sung." After nearly a thousand days, I always felt as if the old madman had never left, that he was still around, and that I was still sleeping on his broad back. At my wedding, he took my hand and blessed me, and on his eightieth birthday, we embraced each other... When he came back to God, he burned incense at his grave and knelt down to pay homage.
Rest assured, old madman, we work well, the family is very good, the two children are very competitive, the academic performance is good, and we are also filial and obedient. The bonds of this world have nothing to do with you, heaven must be beautiful. Also, will I be your granddaughter in the next life? Is it okay not to be bitter and tired in the next life and not to be an old madman?