【Mother's Day Special】Letter to daughter ‖ Jiang Qianwen

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A letter to my daughter

Jiang Qianwen

Dear Yue'er,

Early tomorrow morning, your dad and I will be on our way out to work again. It was already very late at night, but my mother did not sleep and sat down to write to you.

Mom wanted time to stop and give me more time to spend with my beloved daughter.

In the past 16 years, my father and I have missed too many critical periods in your life growth, and we have too much guilt and reluctance for you.

Remember the last time I left you was three years ago, and my daughter was a little girl less than 12 years old. Now you have become a beautiful big girl, and you are already an excellent high school student.

On the day I left home, the sky was raining heavily, and the mountain lying on the back of the house was black and blue, showing a very unhappy look, and the teardrops slid down from the dense branches, as if weeping for our separation. My dad and I walked along the highway with big bags of stuff toward the town station. As we left, you leaned in front of the door and watched us leave silently, while my father and I had tears in our eyes and didn't dare to look back at you. On that day, my parents' feet were as heavy as lead, and every step was so difficult, the tears in their eyes had already broken the embankment and flowed straight down. At the bend in the road, before we disappeared from your sight, I couldn't help but look back suddenly, only to see your thin body, like a sculpture, motionless in the direction we left. I lost control of myself in an instant, dropped the bag on my back, and rushed to you desperately: "I want to hug my daughter again, my moon child..."

"Yue'er her mother, you can't do this..." Your father grabbed me and choked up. I fell into my father's arms and cried...

Later, I heard my grandparents say on the phone that day you stood at the intersection in front of the door without saying a word, without eating or drinking, with your eyes in the direction we left, until it was dark, and then you went back to your room and fell asleep.

My daughter, you long for your parents to stay by your side, and why did your parents ever want to leave you! Your parents gave birth to you, but they could not accompany you, give you a happy and happy childhood, let you live with your grandparents from a young age, help your parents accompany your elderly grandparents, and take care of your grandparents.

You always say on the phone that you miss us, we always perfunctory you on the grounds that we want to earn money to support the family, or buy you some clothes and food to prevaricate you, but we don't care about you well. When bored, they scold you and hurt you.

Daughter, our family has lived in this mountain for generations, guarding a few thin fields, working at sunrise, resting at sunset, living in poverty, and no one in the family has ever gone out of the mountain to see the outside world. With your grandparents old and infirm, and your uninvited arrival, life in this family is even more difficult than before. What child doesn't want their parents to enjoy a happy old age? What parent doesn't want to give their children a happy childhood? In order to improve the economic conditions of the family, your father and I repeatedly discussed, and finally decided to go out of the mountains where this generation lived like other people in the village, go outside to work to earn money to increase income, honor your grandparents, feed you, let you grow up without worry, and want to rebuild the family house through part-time work. The family's adobe house is about to collapse, and on rainy days, the house leaks into a river; on a windy day, the walls are transparent, and there is not even a place to block the wind. Although the government is constantly introducing support policies for our poor mountainous areas, my father and I are still young and in good health, and we can't sit and wait for the government to help and support us! It's just that my poor daughter has not been able to stay with her parents before she has even started learning to speak.

Your dad and I both suffered from lack of culture, expertise and work experience. When we first arrived in the outside world, we were like duckweed, running around, drifting around, blind and directionless, where to find the work on which to survive? On the days when we did not find a job, we could only eat and sleep in the wind, rest our heads on the ground, look up at the sky, and look at the twinkling lights emitted from the windows of the tall buildings in the city, and infinite envy rose in our hearts! We understand that only by studying and going to school can the dolls in the mountains have the opportunity to enter the city, live in such a high-rise building, enter and exit such an office, and live a good life. Your father always said that we should work outside to earn money, and do our best to provide our daughter with good education, college, and out of the mountains.

Daughter, you snuggle in the arms of your grandparents deep in the mountains, and gently call your father and mother, and slowly grow up; parents walk around the streets of other people's cities, picking up the fences on their shoulders and "Collect the waste!" Collect the old yo! "Grow old slowly in the roar...

When you heard the news that you were going to junior high school after graduating from elementary school, your father's thin and decadent back suddenly stood up, and that day we returned to the rental house early, and your father made an exception to drink a big glass of wine, and cried and said a lot of nonsense after drinking: "No matter how hard we are tired, even if we sell blood, we have to provide my daughter with good study, I want her to go to college and become a knowledgeable and cultured person..." "I want my daughter to become a teacher, become a doctor, become a scientist..." I and your father are outside because there is no knowledge and no culture. I have to engage in the simplest and heaviest physical work, which is to say that the good point is to recycle the old things, and the ugly point is to "collect the rags". We shouted along the street, and in the middle of this, we were all blinded and ridiculed by the world, and we could only swallow our anger. We really envy those who are knowledgeable and literate readers, who live so freely, live with so dignity, and live so decently.

Daughter, although your father and I have no culture, we know that reading can not only increase knowledge, but also change the truth of fate, which is the lesson that life has taught us. Therefore, the requirements for your learning are even more harsh, and sometimes there is no regard for your feelings and the endurance of your little child.

I remember in the second half of the first half of the first year of junior high school, your grandfather called and said that your grades had dropped badly, and that your class was always distracted, and that my father was simply smoking and angry. At night, I have been tossing and turning, Mofa fell asleep, and I also had a sleepless night and thought a lot. The next morning we bought our tickets and went back to our hometown.

When we got home, you were walking up to grandma with a basin of hot water and taking care of her face and feet. When you look up to see us, there is a hint of surprise in your eyes, but it quickly dims down, and you only timidly shout: Mommy and Daddy. Just bury your head and do your own thing.

The next day you were about to carry your schoolbag to school, your father coldly stopped you, put a plastic bucket containing five kilograms of water into your school bag, and said rudely: "From today onwards, every day when you go to and from school, you will carry 10 pounds of water in your bag until you read well!" "From home to school, you have to go to and from school every day to go to and from school, my daughter, you did not say a word about the punishment given to you by your father, you accepted the unreasonable punishment given to you by your father, with your tender shoulders every day to go to and from school silently carrying the 10 pounds of water that your father added to your bag, from home to school, back and forth, over and over again...

You quietly tell grandma that as long as you can make your parents stay at home for a few more days, even if you add 10 pounds of water on your back, you are willing to bear it. Hearing this, your father and I cried like children...

That time, we made an exception for an extra 10 days at home, in addition to spending time with our grandparents and doing the family's farm work, we always waited for you outside the school gate before school, and saw you fly out of the school gate like a bird, with a shallow smile on your face.

In those days, my unspoken daughter, the kind and intelligent daughter, her eyes became clearer and brighter, people became cheerful, and our little peacock began to chirp and sing...

Daughter, your father and I are now in a brick factory in Xiangxi to find a job of dragging bricks, when we hold the brick car in hand, bend over the waist, sweat and sweat with both shoulders to pull the brick car forward, always think of the way you study on the case, think of you through your own hard work, plug in the wings, rush to the blue sky, fly higher and farther, even if it is hard, it is also very happy!

The paper is short and long, a thousand words are difficult to express, we look forward to you plugging in the wings of knowledge and flying to the blue sky!

Love your mom

Night of February 16, 2022

Author series of articles

Source: Sichuan Provincial Local History Work Office

Author:Jiang Qianwen (Xuzhou District, Yibin City)

Pictured: Fang Zhi Sichuan

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