Life is short, the years are long, and the miss of family affection is the most unforgettable. Nearly thirty years have passed inadvertently, and my stepmother died in 1987, and it is nearly thirty years this year.
As mentioned in the previous article, my stepmother came to my house in 1959, reorganized into a family with my father, and died in 1987, living with us for twenty-eight years. Twenty-eight years, in the long river of history, long is long, short is short. The years are like a stream, the time is long, but the thought of the stepmother is increasing day by day, and many shots at that time are still fresh in my memory and unforgettable.
There have been several articles in the past that tell about the stepmother,but every time I recall it, it is still unfinished, as if there is an inexhaustible love for the stepmother.
The stepmother was born in the thirty-second year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty, in the year of Bing Wu, that is, in 1906 AD, and the suffering she suffered in her life was really overflowing with words. Warlord melee, Japanese devils, World War II zones, hook army, plus hunger, disease, and the death of several relatives, did not knock her down. In the midst of such hardships and hardships, what force supported her to survive. It is her tenacious, self-reliant spirit, and her strong belief in life that inspires her to overcome difficulties and obstacles. This makes her full of passion and hope for her later life.
And my stepmother is also like thousands of peasant women in China, simple and unpretentious, kind and tolerant, coupled with her diligence and simplicity, good family management, which has played a positive role in my growth.
As mentioned earlier, my father's education for me was more important than words, while my stepmother was teaching by example and teaching by example.
Although my education is not deliberate, it is in her ordinary daily life, with her own rules of life, it has subtly influenced me, educated me, and made me benefit a lot in my future life and work.
Although the stepmother is illiterate, she is a person with a heart, and she has a good memory and high understanding, not only telling some folk tales that are spread in our local area, but also familiar with some of our local riddle stories and some old sayings, and some even export chapters. The stories told by the stepmother are thought-provoking, intriguing, educating people to respect the elderly and the wise, telling people to practice filial piety and the cycle of cause and effect. Or it is to be tolerant of others, grateful to do good, or to be diligent and thrifty, and so on. Most of them are written down by the stepmother from the old drama texts and the inheritance of the older generation.
As mentioned earlier, my family was a paved house facing the street, there were three or four feet out of the eaves in front of the door, the steps were made of stone, the ground was paved with stone slabs, and the middle of the paving was designed according to the difference between the steps and the road surface, and there was a small slide made of stone on one side, each of which was almost one meter. Many children play here every day.
In the summer and fall, we kids played on the slide while listening to my stepmother tell stories. In the winter, when it was the early sixties of the last century, there was no electricity in our village, and at night, under the dim kerosene lamp, the stepmother peeled the cotton peach for the production team (the cotton peach that did not completely collapse on the cotton stalk after the autumn during collectivization, the production team picked it back and then distributed it to the members to separate the cotton from the shell, earn cotton and peach skin to burn the fire, and there were some meager labor, as if it was a division of labor to peel ten pounds of cotton), while guessing riddles and telling stories for us. Or peel the corn cob while telling a story.
Net map To the production team to peel cotton and peaches
Later, under the dim kerosene lamp, the cotton seeds were selected for the production team (that is, the cotton seeds with full grains were picked out to make seeds, and the rest of the cotton seed oil was squeezed), which was also a story telling, guessing riddles, anyway, every day there were new stories, new riddles or something. Or it is a local folk song or a song.
And as mentioned earlier, when I ate the big canteen in the past sixty years, my stepmother was already a person in her fifties and nearly sixty years old, in order to make me less hungry and receive more canteen meals, therefore, I had to participate in the collective labor of the production team, our village is a big village, there is a lot of land, the distance is far, the farthest is seven or eight miles. It was difficult for my stepmother to run for miles every day with a pair of small feet. And when working, a pair of "three-inch golden lotuses" can not squat for a long time, can only kneel in the ground to work, think about that scene, how hard it is!
I also remember following my stepmother to collect wheat. It was the early sixties of the last century, and it was also the second or third year that my stepmother came to my house, when it was a difficult period for the country for three years, people generally did not have enough food to eat, and the white noodles at that time were also very rare, so in the summer of that period for several years, the stepmother had to turn her pair of "three-inch golden lotuses" upside down, against the scorching sun to pick up ears of wheat.
But just like that, the stepmother still ignored it and went to the hot sun to pick up the few ears of wheat.
After the summer solstice, the wheat field of the production team was harvested, but at that time, the collective did not allow people to pick up wheat casually, and the production team also organized the members of the community to collect the wheat collectively before allowing people to pick up the wheat at will.
At that time, the wheat production was not high, and it was collectively picked by the production team, and the ears of wheat that were left behind were conceivable.
Look! In the empty fields, the sky is clear, there is no cloud in the sky, the sun bakes the ground hot, the sun is like a big fireball, hanging high in space, the direct sunlight makes people have nowhere to hide, the weather is sweltering, there is no wind, and the thick air seems to be condensed.
Moreover, the wheat stubble on the field where the wheat was harvested was everywhere, and if she was not careful, the stubble would be stuck in the condyles, but in that case, the stepmother still ignored it and went to the hot sun to pick up the few ears of wheat.
Stepmothers call it "stubble".
Under the scorching sun, the stepmother is still her signature dress, with a black watashirt slanted gown on the upper body, wide-range pants on the lower body, a pair of "three-inch golden lotus" black Daphne embroidered shoes, a white belly towel on the top of the head, and a cotton bag under an apron. I was about ten years old at the time, and I was picking up the ears of wheat with my stepmother.
Is that scene really like the famous Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi's "Guan Jiao Mai";
......
Foot steaming summer earthy, back burning hot skylight,
I don't know the heat, but the summer is long.
There is a poor woman, and a son by her side,
The right hand is left with a spike, and the left arm is hanging from the basket.
Listen to what they say, and the hearers are saddened.
The family field has lost all taxes, and it is full of hunger.
......
In that way, the stepmother can pick up three or five or seven pounds a day, and then the stepmother will rub down the ears of wheat, clean it up, accumulate it, and then mash it into whole wheat noodles (we call it a basket of noodles) on the "trough mill" in her hometown to make up for the lack of food.
Later, the production team was stoned (at that time, in order to build the road, every family had the task of smashing stones, that is, to smash the large stones with a hammer into small stone seeds suitable for paving the road), smashed fertilizer (usually amine nitrate fertilizer, which was wrapped in kraft paper at that time, if it was damp, like a stone, very hard, it was also smashed open with a sledgehammer, and then smashed with a small hammer, and it was also screened down with a sieve), and then later gave people to look at children (looking at children, a saying in the local vernacular, refers to children, It was at that time that the production team in order to improve the attendance rate, let young women participate in production labor, entrusted their children to some elderly women to take care of, at that time to see a day of children, earn two divisions of labor, if a worker a dollar dividend, see a day children can earn two cents, if it is a fifty cent dividend, watch a day the child can only earn a dime).
In addition to being able to bear hardships and stand hard work, my stepmother also had some economic acumen, and in the early 1960s, she used my family to live in the bustling area of Nanbeizheng Street in Yanwu Town, and opened a small dried and fresh fruit stall to operate some of the dried and fresh fruits at that time. At that time, the economy was generally underdeveloped, and many things were lacking. I remember selling some melon seeds, fruit peels, dried apricots, sour plum candy, and some melons and fruits, if you put them in people now, those things are simply dismissive. However, although the stalls were humble and could not make much money, in that era of economic shortage and lack of materials, they still added some income to the family and brought some vitality to the poor and poor life. Later, in keeping pace with the times, he sold cigarettes, which did not stop until the cultural revolution cut the tail of capitalism.
Another characteristic of the stepmother is that the human touch is particularly strong.
As mentioned earlier, the stepmother is hospitable and sincere, she can scrape sha, can cupping, and will also "cold evil" ('cold evil' At that time, people were malnourished and overworked, and many people would get cold evil. I remember that at that time, my father once had a cold evil, the attack, the pain was unbearable, often with a wooden laundry board against the abdomen, strong pressure to relieve pain, and the stepmother would use her soil method to give my father 'cold evil', that is, in the sensitive parts of the back, with the thumb and index finger hard, from a distance can hear the 'cold evil' sound of the 'cold evil', will cut the window flowers, steamed flowers, make fried oil cakes, at that time will also give the little daughters-in-law a hanging face, neighbors, neighbors between the neighbors, she is responsive.
At that time, although our family was not rich, but when my stepmother came to meet some people who wanted food, she always gave generously, and took some of the food from her family to those who begged for a living.
Another significant feature of the stepmother's human touch is reflected in the white affairs of the family, relatives and friends, and good neighbors, that is, "hanging filial piety".
"Hanging filial piety" is also a concrete manifestation of a funeral culture handed down by the ancestors for thousands of years in the old times. It expresses a kind of mourning for the deceased by the "hanging filial piety", and through the tearful crying of the "hanging filial piety", expresses the evaluation of the previous examples of the deceased, as well as eliminates some estrangement and resolves some misunderstandings or hatreds.
Zhuge Liang hangs filial piety
The famous Zhuge Liang hanging filial piety in history vividly embodies this funerary culture.
I remember that at that time, if the stepmother had her own family (the second husband of the stepmother was a family with the surname of Wang in our village, and there were more family members in the family) or relatives and friends and some well-known driving cranes, they would go to "hang filial piety". In the words of the stepmother; It is to hang a hanging (hanging the local vernacular pronunciation die).
At that time, I was still young, I met white things, children love to watch the liveliness, sometimes in order to make some deacons (tents, banners, or some paper) on white things to earn a dime or two, generally white things often have our children's figure, so sometimes we will see stepmothers to "hang filial piety".
And the stepmother to "hang filial piety", not like some people dry howl, or fake a few tears, but tears, voice and emotion, very natural expression of mourning for the deceased, coupled with the stepmother's articulate, give full play to her usual love of singing opera characteristics, there are crying and singing, sincere and sincere true feelings, often resonated with the families of the deceased.
This also fully reflects the strong human touch of the stepmother and the importance of human feelings.
As for the stepmother's thrifty housekeeper at that time, coarse grains, and making some special foods in her hometown, making some local specialties, it is not cumbersome to have been described earlier.
The stepmother is also the harem, and for the harem, some people often say that the heart of the former family and the scorpion's tail is to describe the heart of the snake and scorpion of the harem. People have heard rumors that the cruel stepmother is not kind to her children, but nothing in the world is absolute, and there must be very few people like that, and most of the stepmothers are reasonable, kind and tolerant, such as my stepmother. As mentioned earlier, my stepmother has a fiery temper and a knife mouth, but she has a kind heart and a tofu heart, and for me, she is loving and caring. Later, I loved and cared for my three children even more. As we local people say, there is a stepmother, and there is no stepmother (the local name of the mother-in-law) who is close to the next generation, and it is more intimate.
Time flies, the years flow, stepmother left us for nearly thirty years, even though the years have passed, did not dilute my thoughts of my stepmother, with the increase of age, the richness of various life experiences, the thought of stepmother is increasing day by day.
The life of the stepmother, like the father's, is also plain, ordinary, and ordinary, but it is also a life without complaints and regrets, facing various difficulties in life, as well as various difficulties, never complaining at all, complaining, just tenaciously fighting, living with confidence.
Although my stepmother's life is extremely ordinary, her ordinary deeds, kindness and tolerance, simplicity, optimism and upward purpose of life have infected me and influenced me, and she has made me understand the truth of being a real person with the personality of an ordinary person and selfless dedication. Thinking back on the road that my stepmother has traveled in her life, I have more understanding of life: a person's life may be vigorous, perhaps obscure, ordinary, but for many ordinary people, as long as you do what you should do steadily, for the society, life, for the family, for the children to spare no effort to dedicate, to do ordinary things well, then you are an extraordinary person.
Once again, this article commemorates the deep love for the stepmother!