There is one more pair of eyes in the sky
- Missing my dear dad
Li Xiao
"Drop more than 10 degrees, open the cold + rain and rain screen mode, the first two days are still wearing short-sleeved shorts to escape the summer, today has long-sleeved long pants plus body!" This is the introduction to the weather news published by a WeChat public account of the media in my city on October 11, 2021.
This is an ordinary day in the endless flow of life on the earth, and the world's major events that I usually care about are not big things for me, but the cold and warm in the world is still my sense of skin. The weather forecast also said that a cold current wandered from the high sky and white clouds to the south from the north of the mainland, and this kind of gentle autumn rain weather was really "cooler than one". The temperature during the National Day holiday, which resembles the temperature of summer, suddenly turned a corner today, which is the magical change of seasons.
For a family, this is a cone of the heart of the day, this night at 9:58, Dad's life at the age of 84 on earth frozen. I became a middle-aged man who had lost his dad. On the path of my life, I felt that an old wall that sheltered me collapsed, but I did not see a puff of smoke rising. Everything is like a dream. I felt a big hole in my heart again, flustered, panting, dazed.
Looking out of the hospital window, the night was dark and there were no stars. But I still think that from now on, in the twinkling of the stars in the sky, there will be another pair of star-like eyes looking at me in the sky. Some people have said that it is the eyes of the deceased relatives who have turned into stars, still looking at the busy and laboring earthly world, looking at the bright blessings given by the earthly relatives.
Dad, I think, in the starry sky, there is a pair of eyes that belong to you, and I can recognize the light of the stars and guide my walk on earth.
In this distant and warm starlight, I came up with several negatives of memories about my father.
On the family composition sheet I filled out when I was in the village primary school, I was always in a state of change, sometimes filling in the poor peasants, sometimes filling in the cadres. My grandparents and my mother are people who cultivate land, and it is true that they are farmers, and it is true that my father is a cadre of the municipal party committee in the city where he works. These are both components of the glorious family.
Photos of my father just starting college and joining the workforce
My father, the first college student in our village since the founding of new China, graduated from the teachers' college in his city in 1962, and he used to sell bamboo weaving products from elementary school smiths with my grandfather as a school fee. In front of the old house where my father lived, there was a tall and green bamboo forest, when the wind blew, there was a roar, and when I returned to my hometown in those years, I hallucinated and heard a bamboo tree in front of the old house falling down in the sound of the knife cutting, one bamboo tree after another, which became a basket, a basket, and a dustpan sold in the country market. After graduation, Dad was assigned to teach at a county middle school. But one day on the eve of graduation, my father picked up a watch that was very expensive at the time in the school playground, and my father silently handed the watch to the school office. Later, it was found out that the fast watch was lost by the principal of the school, and my father became a role model for learning in the school. When the municipal party committee of the city where I worked went to the school to select people, my father became a cadre in the compound of the municipal party committee without suspense.
The compound of the organ where my father worked was a small building deep in the courtyard, and the trees showed a kind of deep aura of time. The slab on the second floor is a layer of coffee-colored wood with a layer of pulp, and Dad has a small bedroom there. The thing I longed for most when I was a child was to walk dozens of kilometers with my father to the gray city, looking at the road telephone poles full of birds and finches, and my heart was also as happy as birds and finches, in the small room of the organ compound, my father and I slept on the wooden bed. In the morning, there was soy milk and fritters in the canteen, which was enough for me to go back to the countryside and show off to my friends who had not yet entered the county.
Father (left) with colleague (right).
Dad worked as a secretary, he worked as an office secretary and a personal secretary for 21 years, during which he was promoted to the department as a leader many times, but my father refused. Dad said that I was still fit to write material. My dad stuttered a bit when he spoke at the convention, but some of the material he wrote tended to go down in the air. In the pocket of my father's Zhongshan suit, there is always a pen inserted, always writing like a storm, always looking at the glowing look, which is also the image of my father who is constant in my youth, and this image of him may be rooted in my memory for a lifetime. When Dad was old, I looked at his trembling and mighty appearance, he sometimes lay on the old rattan chair at home and snoozed like a baby's milk, especially when he was helpless when he was suffering from illness, and he finally breathed heavily in the hospital bed until the first time he was crooked, and I refused to admit in my heart that he was my real father. Is this an illusion after the time and space span?
Dad scribbled quickly on his workbook with a pen, and he had two common fonts, one was a fly-headed letter and the other was cursive. The font is as strong as a long flow, Dad's fly head is small, I feel that he has always been cautious and diligent and even sometimes trembling personality. But dad wrote cursive, the font is like a golden snake dancing wildly, I can't figure out the other side of his personality.
Dad had great prestige in his old village, but one thing made his image collapse. At that time, a brigade cadre in my hometown went to the city to find my father to do a collective business, but he wanted to ask my father to write a note and hand it to the supply and marketing cooperatives to buy more fertilizer and other agricultural materials. On that occasion, Dad asked the brigade cadres to eat in the canteen of the organ and refused to "hand over the note", and Dad said that the policy did not allow it. When the cadres of the brigade full of hope left the compound of the organ disappointed, they suddenly saw my father carrying a briefcase and trotting behind a green jeep, and in the jeep sat a leader in the organ, and my father rushed forward to prepare to open the door for the leader, and the man laughed. After the cadres of the brigade returned to the village, they described in a colorful way that my father was "the kind of person who carries a palanquin for people" in the city office. The people in the village were also happy, it turned out to be this kind of person, what to wear. My dad smiled and squinted not angry at all. Later, after the death of the cadre of this brigade, my father immediately called and asked me to take a gift and go to mourn on his behalf, and my father said that this was a person who dared to do practical things for the village.
Father toured Jiuzhaigou
When my father retired, he was the chairman of the people's congress in a town, administratively at the level of a full section, and had worked in revolutionary work for 35 years. From the city to the town to work, my father took the initiative to apply, because my mother was still working in the wind and rain and thunder in my hometown, and my father came home on weekends to sow grain and harvest crops, which was something he and my mother shared. My dad kept nursing my mom, and at noon the day before the onset of the disease, my dad kept holding my mom's hand and not letting go. After my dad took a nap for half an hour, he didn't say a word until he died of a cerebral infarction, so it's no wonder that his mouth was still open after he swallowed. Dad, I may understand what you want to say, but why is fate so coldly arranged, and the disease does not allow me to hear the last words you want to say. Mom said that Dad didn't want to bother dragging your children down, and he only stayed in the hospital for half a month and died.
Dad's life has actually been very melancholy. In my memory, most of the time he was worried and worried.
There are indeed many things worthy of Dad's melancholy and heavy. Dad is a big family, a total of 8 brothers and sisters, the salary of working in the city that year, the whole family is eager to feed as hope. When dad was 39 years old, he relied on savings of more than 700 yuan to tear down the thatched house in his hometown village and built a row of green tile houses, but later the 3 brothers separated their families, and each family's house appeared narrow again. I remember one day, my father stood in front of the old house and began to plan to build a new house, but after discussing with my mother, the number on the passbook was far from enough. Dad sighed deeply and then smiled and comforted my mother, saying that there was no hurry, and continued to save money.
Dad has been working hard to save money all his life. Whenever the salary arrived, my father told my mother to quickly withdraw it and save it regularly, and the regular interest rate was higher. When my father's legs and feet were convenient, he accompanied my mother to the bank to deposit money, and his biggest concern was the bank interest rate. Once I went to the bank to deposit money, and when I learned that the interest rate on that day had just been lowered compared to yesterday, I shook my head and sighed.
Dad's family has at least 10 passbooks, and before he died, he used the old-fashioned paper passbooks, from hundreds of yuan to thousands of yuan, one by one, my father repeatedly rubbed them, and some of them were raw. Especially after the age of 80, my dad sleeps less at night, often wakes up my mother late at night, quickly go to take out the passbook for me to see, I always feel that the number is not right, to the old accountant while muttering while pulling the abacus in his heart to seriously calculate. The little money that Dad saved was for his children and grandchildren. Dad was reluctant to go to the restaurant, every time he dragged his parents to eat a meal outside, Dad calculated how many meals he could eat if the meal money was used at home, and the leftover soup that was packed back in the restaurant was eaten until he was hungry, and he was reluctant to throw it away, and even the expired medicine had to be eaten.
Father (left) with mother (right).
When my father was 80 years old, after consulting with my mother in the middle of the night, he decided to hand over all the savings to me, and also wrote the passbook password on a note and told me. Dad said, your grandmother is old and suffering from Alzheimer's disease, I am also worried about the disease, it is better to give these to you as soon as possible to rest assured. But a few days later, Dad called and said he had changed the password again. The reason dad gave was that he read the newspaper every day, and the possibility of Alzheimer's disease was unlikely, so he kept it for us for a while. Dad was still a little wary of me, and he had been living carefully. When Dad was 82 years old, he made a decisive decision again and gave me all that savings. This time it was true. I touched the money, and I had the temperature of my parents.
The afternoon before Dad suddenly fell ill, he woke up from his slumber and snoozed and asked my mom how much money was left in her passbook. My mother replied that it was more than 9,000 yuan. My dad said, hurry, hurry, go get this money out and give it to my son. My mom quickly complied.
When I got the money that day, my dad looked at me and said, if I leave in the future, you have to take care of your mother. That was my dad's last instruction to me. Dad, for sure.
Around the age of 40, Dad's hair was almost half white. Especially after my brother died when he was 19 years old, his father, who was struck by lightning, was all dyed with frost overnight.
Looking at my father's frosted hair like silk, I thought, my father's whole life is such an old silkworm that has been spitting silk until the end.
Father, from now on, there will be stars in the sky, and your affectionate gaze, which I can receive in my heart on earth.
(Image courtesy of the author)
(Author Affilications:Wuqiao Subdistrict Office, Wanzhou District)
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