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A mother-in-law who has a home everywhere but is a guest everywhere

A mother-in-law who has a home everywhere but is a guest everywhere

*This article is the content of the second issue of "Reading" in 2023

One step forward is the "old drift", stopping in place as an "empty nest". My mother-in-law, who had always been reluctant to cause trouble for her children and "go to prison" in a big city building, finally followed us to Tianjin, a city 1,000 kilometers away, with unkempt white hair the day after her father-in-law was buried. That year, she was 87 years old.

Under the same roof, the days of spending time with my mother-in-law really began. Since arriving in Tianjin, my mother-in-law has never shed a single tear in our face, as if we have lost the page of our father-in-law, and we have all tacitly lifted the past. There are some hurdles that we have to hurry through, we are, and so does my mother-in-law.

Give the best room to my mother-in-law, and make the meal soft and rotten that she can eat; When Mr. Weekend is at home, he will drive a car, bring a wheelchair, accompany his mother-in-law to the park to see square dances, look at the scenery, and then go to the restaurant for a meal; The TV at home has been playing my mother-in-law's favorite "Liu Luo Pot"...

A mother-in-law who has a home everywhere but is a guest everywhere

Mr. travels a lot; My work generally starts in the afternoon, and coming back at 12 p.m. is the norm. It was easy to hire an hourly worker so that we could take care of our mother-in-law when we went to work, but this old lady, who had been thrifty all her life, was anxious: "You are forcing me to stay!" It's good that I have dry food and saliva, and the money is not blown by the wind, so I have to leave it to my eldest grandson to buy a house and marry a daughter-in-law! "I had to leave my work at 5 p.m. every day, buy meals, take a taxi from the unit to get home, and then hurriedly take a taxi back to the unit.

Live well in your son's house, and drag down your children less - mother-in-law always thinks so. But the strange city, and those smart appliances, made her hit a wall everywhere. One day when I got off work late at night but saw that the house was dark, my mother-in-law heard the sound and moved out of the bedroom with crutches, and Zhao Yan said: "I'm really old, I want to use a rice cooker to cook, and I forgot to put it in and poured water." "It turned out to be tripped. I reassured her that "it's okay if people are fine", but she had to give me a handkerchief with money, "Everything in this house is expensive, I have hundreds of dollars, I don't know if it's enough to buy a new one?" "I advised her several times, but she was still preoccupied, and she never dared to try cooking again.

There was also a day after work, I forgot to bring the key, walked to the door of the community and called my mother-in-law to open the door of the building for me. The door opened, but my mother-in-law didn't know where to go! I broke out in a cold sweat and ran to find it, and when I reached the second floor, I saw my mother-in-law anxiously banging on the door of my neighbor's house. "I went downstairs and opened the door for you, remember that my home is on the second floor, and then climb up, why is the door locked." I hurriedly hugged her, wanting to cry without tears, how many times I had told her, "Our family lives on the 10th floor". I can't know how my 87-year-old mother-in-law took the elevator to the first floor for the first time in her life in order to open the door to the door of the gate building for me, and how she hobbled up the steps on the second floor...

Those who frustrate the mother-in-law are also the crowd that cannot be integrated. Sometimes I accompany my mother-in-law downstairs to sit and watch the playful children in the community. There are many elderly people in the community who come from other places to bring their grandchildren, but when my mother-in-law picks up, people can't understand her dialect, and she can't understand other people's dialects.

And her mother-in-law, who loves to be lively and idle all her life, has never given up her efforts to live a good life: a few abandoned flower pots on the balcony were planted with garlic at some point; But more often, the mother-in-law either lies lonely or moves a small stool to sit less than a step away from the TV and chase "Liu Luoguo" - she only watches "Liu Luoguo". It was after the death of her father-in-law, and her mother-in-law came to Tianjin from her homeland to fight alone against the plight of her twilight years. The maverick teacher Li Baotian, completely unaware that there are "iron fans" like her mother-in-law, carefully begging her children to help her turn on the smart TV every day, just to spend the day happily in the laughter and bustle of "Liu Luoguo". Of course, the mother-in-law is most happy to receive occasional calls from the juniors of the village ...

The husband went back to his hometown to burn five or seven pieces of paper for his father-in-law and brought back the pancakes prepared by the child's second uncle for his mother-in-law. The next day, my niece came to see my mother-in-law, she was overjoyed, just sat down to prepare for dinner, but I received a call from my hometown: During the nap, the child's second uncle suddenly went... Putting down the phone, I looked at my mother-in-law who was grinning at "Liu Luoguo", and my heart was sad.

A mother-in-law who has a home everywhere but is a guest everywhere

In just 30 days, the old father and younger brother passed away one after another, and the pain of my husband could not be resolved. And the second son, who had never been heard from in his hometown, also became a heart disease for his mother-in-law. On the morning of the Qingming Festival, she was eating wontons and suddenly said to me faintly: "I dreamed of my second son at night, and your father-in-law." The second son sat in the old house, wearing a small white coat, and called his mother when he entered the door. "Because of the special nature of this day, I was secretly shocked.

One day my husband answered a work call at home, and my mother-in-law turned off the TV and moved over and asked, "But the second son's phone?" "Words are urgent. The gentleman said no, and the mother-in-law said "oh" and did not ask again. A few days later, my mother-in-law whispered to me, "That day, I heard the boss answer the phone and call the name of my second son. If the second son can call, then it is not a big deal. "Maybe I was relieved, and my mother-in-law's spirit was much better than before.

Through the back of my mother-in-law watching the TV, I can see the scenes of her life: when she was young, she also had big black eyes and married a handsome young man who drove a carriage on a 10,000-head pig farm; Playing hogweed with a bunch of daughters-in-law during the day, attending literacy classes at night ... It was one of the few happy times in her life, and since the day I met her, I have listened to her anytime, anywhere. However, the fate of people was like a blow in the wind, and in 1962, the 10,000-head pig farm was abolished, and on a rainy summer, they returned to the village with their two young children. In those years, I couldn't bring out a bowl of gruel for a day after hard work, and I had to sew under the lamp to accompany my son to read hard... She locked the bitterness of those years in the dark box of memory.

A mother-in-law who has a home everywhere but is a guest everywhere

In 1978, my husband took the college entrance examination, and after that, my mother-in-law's family became a legend. Later, the policy was good, the fields were divided into households, and the refined rice and white noodles could not be eaten. The sons also stood up one by one, and life was prosperous. The stable old age of my mother-in-law and father-in-law is a spring and autumn, and it is also a hard work.

I am not my mother-in-law's sweet daughter-in-law, but every year when I return to my hometown for the Spring Festival, she still prepares a thick new quilt for us early; In order to bring her little grandson, she also followed us to Tianjin without saying a word. Now, with more day and night under the same roof, the words spoken by my mother-in-law are warmer: "I can't be my own body's home, in case I can't come up in one breath, you don't have a neighbor to help me, or send me back to my hometown to rest assured." ”

Born like a flutter, but full and undeserved. Now, the mother-in-law's fluttering canopy has returned to her hometown and gently fell into the warm embrace of the hometown land. One day, Mr. suddenly said that "Liu Luoguo"'s smiling demeanor and self-deprecating tone were very similar to the old father when he was young...

Original title: "Fluttering in the Wind"

Author: Zhang Zhen Shao Henning

Editor: Zhang Ziqing / Proofreader: Guo Yanhui

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