The other day, I read an article by Mr. Jia Pingwa entitled "Sacrifice to the Father", which said that his old father died of illness, and a cat that had been fed for many years also went with its owner... This plot always came to my mind and mind. Today is the Tomb Sweeping And Ancestor Worship Festival, the Qingming Festival of mourning, it has been exactly twenty-seven years since my father's death, and I also want to tell a story about cats and fathers, so as to pay tribute to my father in heaven.
I remember that my family always liked to keep cats, and I still have one at home. My father's cat was an anonymous one, because he hadn't given it a name. The general cat appearance is pleasing to people, and the father's cat can be said to be low from the appearance point of view, you can also say that some "ugly", because the cat's face is half gray and half black, commonly known as "flower face" or "yin and yang face", although the cat is "ugly", but the father likes.
In addition to going to work, feeding cats became one of the father's daily tasks. Because cats like to eat fishy food, my father fixed it to a nearby lamb powder restaurant once or twice a week to buy a whole cage of lamb hearts and lungs to take home, and then cut into equal small pieces and put them on the stove to dry. At that time, almost every household burned the stove, and the "Beijing stove" was used in winter, so it was convenient to roast cats. After the heart and lungs of the sheep are dried, the father then crushes them with a bowl and packs them in plastic bags, and the cat's "dish" is ready. The rice is made with freshly steamed rice, which can be fed to the cat by stirring the heat with the heart and lungs. Twice a day in the morning and evening, my father "thundered". The father is honest and kind, but his personality is more introverted, and he does not smile, and whenever he sees the cat satisfied with the cat food, the father's face inadvertently reveals a smile. In the four or five years that his father carefully bred, the kittens grew up, from slender and slender to fat heads and large ears. There is a folk saying that "a fat covers a hundred ugly", which means that even if a baby and young child who does not look well-behaved, as long as he is fat enough, he will cover up the flaws and be likable, so are young children, and so are cats.
In people's minds, cats are not easy to take the initiative to approach or approach people, and are relatively cold and arrogant animals, while father's cats are different. It may be the cat's innate spirituality, the father's daily efforts, it will have a perception. Whenever the father comes home from work and just inserts the key into the keyhole, it will jump up, pounce on its own owner, shake its head and tail like a puppy, Mimi's circle, and rub her father's pants leg with her head, which is a very intimate, very warm scene, which will appear every day. The cat seems to be able to hear and smell the footsteps and breath of the father, and seems to have a sharp mind with the father.
In the autumn of 1990, my father's unit had a physical examination and found stomach cancer. My strong, determined father, who was optimistic about the disease, left our relatives after more than two years of fighting it.
During his father's funeral, he had gone home to get the things he needed, and it seemed that the cat was not in good spirits, and he didn't care too much because he was busy. After four or five days, I took care of the cat, and in just a few days, it completely changed, from a fat head and big ears to a skinny bone, even standing is very difficult, always shrinking, cat food is almost unchanged, completely losing the former tiger and tiger vitality, lively and cute spirituality. The original most divine cat's eyes look so dim, and the careful observation seems to be still hanging with tears...
When the mother saw the situation, she proposed to give the cat away, and it might be better to change someone's family. In this way, the cat was given to one of my colleagues, who knew that on the third day after sending, the colleague told the cat that he did not eat or drink, you still carry it back! The cat returned home, but still did not eat or drink, and the spirit, qi, and spirit of the past were all gone. I suppose the cat may be waiting, waiting for the familiar sound of footsteps, waiting for the familiar breath, waiting for the return of the owner who cares for and feeds it every day. However, the cat could no longer wait to return to its owner, and I could not wait to return to my father, who had drifted away. About ten days after his father left, the cute and poor elf also went to heaven with his father. Since then, there have been cats in heaven with fathers, and fathers have accompanied cats in heaven.
Cats are not what people say is difficult to approach, arrogant and lonely, cats actually have the loyalty of dogs, and they have the spirituality of communicating with people, and the spirit of cats is more like human nature.
In the early morning of April 4, 2022
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