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My name is Xing Xiaomin, I am 57 years old, I am now a high school teacher in the county, and I am about to retire. When I retire, my greatest wish is to return to my hometown to spend time with my parents and my uncle.
My hometown is in a remote mountain village, and even now that the transportation is developed, I have to walk nearly 100 kilometers of highway, and then I have to walk 40 miles of county roads.
My parents have five children, I am the youngest in the family, the eldest brother and sister are several years older, and by the time I go to school, only my brother and I are studying.
When I was in the first grade, the conditions of our family were not bad, after all, the eldest brother and sister were already able to help with some work, and my father worked as an accountant in the lime factory of the brigade, which was half a leader.
However, although my father could make cash income when he went to the lime factory, he relied on his mother to eat with five or six mouths at home, and the rations he earned were a bit too much to eat, and he had to use the "wages" that his father got back to hand over to the production team in exchange for rations.
Of course, if we can continue to do this, our family's life will be better than other people's, after all, we can see some cash.
The problem was when I was in the second grade, and my father had an accident at the lime factory. It is said that there was not enough labor on the kiln that day, so my father, as a leader, took the initiative to help, and fell down the mountain while digging stones.
When my mother took my siblings and us to the hospital, my father was still sighing. The doctor's words were not clear, but he said that his waist was not broken, but if he wanted to walk on the ground and return to the same as before, he needed time and luck.
In this way, the situation of our family plummeted, and it was all up to my mother to work with three and a half laborers of my eldest brother and sister.
Although everyone also took care of some affection when distributing rations, and the brigade would also send a little to "appease", but five or six mouths to eat, plus my father had to be served in bed, this day was not as good as day by day.
It just happened that in May, there was no rain in our local spring, and the whole team couldn't eat enough, so where could we take care of our family?
As a result, our family can often only drink sweet potato porridge, and it is very thin and thin, so thin that you can see the shadow of people. The porridge was also made of a pitiful little brown rice, as well as old sweet potatoes that my mother had dug out of the "hotbed".
Nowadays, many people don't know what an old sweet potato is. The sweet potatoes that the rural people collect every autumn will hide them in the cellar, and select those that have no skin damage and are well-proportioned and put together for the next year's seeds.
In the early spring of the second year, pig dung and cow dung are used to put them in the ground, and then the sweet potato seeds left over the year are lined up on the pig manure one by one.
Sprinkle a thin layer of fine soil on top, cover with a layer of straw, and if possible, cover it with plastic film, which is the "hotbed". The advantage of this is that the temperature inside is higher, and the sweet potatoes sprout and grow faster.
After the sweet potato seedlings grow, they can be cut back, cut into sections, and planted on the mountain soil like rice transplants. When the soil is full, the sweet potato seedlings in the hotbed can be fed to the pigs.
Most of the old sweet potatoes in the hotbed are not bad, just look at the appearance and are even intact, but when you eat it, you will find that there is no taste and it is very hard, which makes it difficult for people to swallow, and even pigs don't like to eat it.
That year was also a special situation, no matter how unpalatable the old sweet potatoes were, they were also sweet potatoes, and our family relied on those bowls of sweet potato porridge to survive the green and yellow May.
However, it also happened to rain overnight, that year, our local wind and rain were not smooth all year round, and the early rice harvested some shriveled millet, although the late rice was barely planted, drought and floods followed, and the yield of the late rice was pitifully low, and even the crops in the mountain soil were less than half of the usual years.
This time is terrible, no matter how good it is, eating enough is the most basic, the rations of a family of five or six people, divided into more than a load of grain, and some sweet potatoes and beans and peanuts, where is enough to eat until the summer of the next year?
Although my mother saved again and again, the family's food bottomed out quickly, and there were more rainy and snowy days in winter, what should I do?
I distinctly remember that the only happy thing in our family that year was that my father was finally able to walk on his own when the first snow fell.
But after a short period of joy, in my father's own words: If I were still paralyzed in bed, your mother would still be able to go to the brigade and the commune to ask for some relief for the New Year, and now she can walk, and she can't even go that way.
Seeing that the New Year is getting closer and closer, I am also on winter vacation, but every day I am hungry and growling, and the only bit of brown rice in the family has finally been completely eaten, and even the rice bowl has been washed by the eldest sister.
From tomorrow onwards, our family will be really hungry.
After the "dinner", it snowed heavily, I don't know if it was because the temperature was extremely low in those days, or because we ate less and didn't have enough calories, anyway, the family felt very cold, so they had to roast around the fire pit.
Chai He is the only material that people like us do not lack, and it is basically picked up from the mountains by the eldest sister with the three of us.
The whole family was around the fire, no one spoke, parents and big brothers and sisters were thinking about where to borrow rice for breakfast tomorrow, and the three of us were not in the mood to make noise, just stretched out our hands to try to get closer to the fire.
Suddenly, there was the sound of footsteps outside the door, and the sound of creaking on the snow was getting closer. There was no light in the house, and it was moonlight, and it was vaguely clear that a man had arrived at the door, but the fire in front of us was shining, but we couldn't see the faces of the people outside.
The person who came stood at the door and slapped the snowflakes on his body, but shouted loudly: Big brother and sister-in-law, I'm back.
Before I could react, my father stood up and asked tremblingly: "Second child, are you back?"
The father got up with a bamboo stick as a crutch, and the mother also lit the lamp, and greeted happily: "Uncle, why are you back?"
It was our uncle who came back, but it was the first time I had seen him, and none of the three of us had seen him except for my eldest brother and sister.
Speaking of which, although I also knew of the existence of this uncle, I never knew that he was tall, short, fat and thin, because he had not been back for more than ten years.
My father had only two brothers, but my grandfather's generation had several brothers, and the youngest uncle went to the Lake District to settle down, but my uncle and grandmother did not come out of his life, and later passed on his uncle to him.
Since then, for us, this uncle has become a cousin, and the two families are separated by more than 200 kilometers, and it is rare to come back several times a year.
Later, when my grandparents died, my uncle had even fewer chances to come home, and no, even our three little nephews hadn't seen each other.
My uncle took my father's hand and went into the house after taking the snow at the door, and sat down on a chair that my mother had given him next to the fire pit.
Only then did I see clearly that the uncle in front of me was still a very tall man, standing with my father, almost a head taller.
The two brothers sat together, and my father asked, "Why did you come back without saying a word in such a big snow?"
Uncle smiled and said, "Our hydrological team was conducting a survey in Wazipu, and I thought that it was only seventy or eighty miles away from home, so I took a day off to come back and have a look."
Although it was a distant guest or a rare guest, the family really couldn't come up with something to entertain, and when he learned that his uncle hadn't eaten yet, his father could only sigh and shake his head and say: Second brother, I'm not afraid of your jokes, there really isn't a grain of rice at home, and I can't even get you a bowl of rice.
Uncle said with a smile, big brother, don't worry, I also know that it is not easy for you, although I haven't gone home all these years, I have been prepared for what I want to get outside.
After speaking, my uncle got up again and went to the door, took out a yellow satchel like a trick, brought it in and handed it to my mother, and said, "Sister-in-law, there are twenty catties of rice in here, you can take it and cook some food first."
Then, the uncle sat next to his father again, and the two brothers talked and chatted, and they both talked about what had happened over the years, and learned that their father had fallen last year, and he could barely get out of bed until a few days ago, and the uncle was even more remorseful and hateful, complaining that his father did not write to him.
Finally, the uncle untied the padded jacket he was wearing, reached out and took out a roll of things from the inside, and stuffed it into his father's hand, saying:
Big brother, this is my salary this month, you can collect it and live this year first. Anyway, I'm running around alone now, and I just want to send money to my family and no one collects it, so I can use it for you, and I can keep the children from suffering so much.
The father was not polite to the uncle, but just held the money tightly and said: "Second brother, I will borrow this money from you, and I will definitely pay it back to you in the future."
That night, we finally ate the rice we hadn't seen for a long time, and we even slept soundly. My uncle stayed at my house for only one night, and the next day he set off after breakfast, and had to walk seventy or eighty miles to get back to the hydrological team.
The 25 yuan left by my uncle became our family's life-saving money, not only bought medicine for my father, but also bought some fat meat for the New Year, and by the beginning of spring, my father fully recovered.
Later, my uncle really sent money to our family every month, sometimes about 10 yuan, sometimes 20 yuan, and our family's life gradually improved, and my younger brother and I were able to continue to go to school.
We grew up and my uncle would come back once a year. His father also advised him why he didn't find someone to start a family, but his uncle sighed and said:
I missed it back then, and I didn't think about starting a family anymore, and now that I'm older, I don't have that heart. When I retire in the future, I will go back to my hometown and live with my brother and sister-in-law for the elderly.
With my uncle's financial support, it took about three or five years for our family to catch their breath, and my father went to record the money sent by my uncle in the account books.
Later, I was admitted to the technical secondary school, and my younger brother also went to college, and every time I went home, my father would remind us that although your uncle's money was paid off, that love would never be repaid.
After his uncle retired, he really returned to his hometown, and his parents cleaned up a house for him, and the three old people have been living together.
Over the years, several of us brothers and sisters have really never had a second heart for our uncle.
In particular, I still vividly remember that snowy night decades ago, when my uncle appeared in front of us like a god from heaven and allowed me to eat a fragrant white rice meal.
It's a shame to say that as for the sponsorship I received from my uncle when I went to school later, it wasn't so profound.
After decades of hard work, I was transferred to teach in a middle school in the county, and now I have settled in the county, which is nearly 100 kilometers away from my hometown.
On New Year's Day last year, I suddenly received a call from my eldest brother, saying that my uncle was sick and was still in the town hospital and had not woken up, so I asked me to come back and have a look.
After receiving a call from my eldest brother, I immediately picked up the car keys and prepared to go home, and my wife and I returned to the town hospital in my hometown overnight.
The doctor told us that your uncle was likely to have a cerebral hemorrhage, and that it was impossible for the town hospital to perform surgery, and suggested going to the county or even city hospital tomorrow.
Since they were all back and had mastered my uncle's condition, I simply made a decision to transfer my uncle to the county people's hospital overnight, contacted a familiar doctor in advance, and when the ambulance sent my uncle to the hospital, it was already more than two o'clock in the morning.
After a few days of rescue, my uncle finally woke up, took my hand and choked up and said: Xiaosi, you saved my uncle's old life.
I touched my uncle's old hand and said to him with a deliberate smile: Look at what you said, can we still say who saved whom? If you have to say that, didn't you save our family on that snowy night decades ago?
Although it was true, I deliberately said it a little naughty, and my uncle's old face finally showed a hint of red, and his eyes seemed to extend to the distant past......
My uncle stayed in the hospital for more than a month, and since I had not yet retired, I had to let my wife take care of the elderly, and I could only go to the hospital after work by myself. Under the care of our husband and wife, my uncle finally recovered and was discharged from the hospital.
The only regret is that I wish my uncle could live in the county so that he can take better care of him. Besides, I also have a little Jiujiu in my heart, as long as my uncle agrees to come to live in the city, my parents in my hometown will no longer have an excuse to refuse.
Unfortunately, my uncle stubbornly returned to his hometown and still lived with my father. Now they are all old brothers who are over eighty years old, which really makes me feel more family affection.
Write at the end:
My uncle retired from the hydrological team, and his pension is enough to cover his living and medical expenses.