Generations miss it
The whole family stands in honor
My uncle came, and at the end of the year I was very busy, but I had to see him, just today.
As soon as I thought about seeing him, my heart tightened.
Getting up early and riding an electric donkey to send my daughter to school, On December 12, 2018, the morning was very cold, and I should have a long, long time I can't forget the cold of this morning. The brain door was blown sore and painful by the wind. I put my daughter down and rushed to the agreed place, the brain door was cracking more and more, but the hand holding the accelerator handlebar could not be released, and the electric donkey took me and flew faster and faster. Wind, bigger, please help send the tears back to where they came from, knife power, you can't cry today.
01
This uncle from my hometown, he is not my uncle, nor can he be counted as a cousin, he is the son of my grandfather and ex-wife, and he is my grandfather's first child.
Born in the 1930s, when he first entered his youth, he married a girl from the same village in his rural hometown, and had a son and a daughter after marriage. The battle became more and more fierce, the grandfather's family followed the communists, the daughter-in-law's family followed the country, the two families fell apart, never again, and the two divorced immediately.
After the two families broke off their friendship, the old man came to him once and asked him to help him with something. Grandpa did not dare, the wartime parties were different, private contact was to lose his head, he hid and did not dare to see. The old man waited for a long time and did not find anyone, so he had to leave, and on the way back, he fell into a well and committed suicide, it turned out that asking for help from his former son-in-law was the last straw in his life. The next day, the son of the old man came to look for his father, and the villagers who voted for the communist party rushed to force him to draw a line with his father, even if he was a dead person, he had to draw a line, he was afraid of death, afraid that he would be killed by them, so he took a long knife in front of the villagers and broke his father's stomach, and threw his intestines out to the ground, which was to say, I hate you, this other party!
After that, grandpa completely left the revolution, the daughter-in-law became the ex-wife, the ex-wife divorced but did not leave home, the in-laws recognized her, stayed at home and became a daughter. The daughter raised a pair of her own children, gave her in-laws a long time, and soon passed away, buried in the ancestral graves of her in-laws, and a pair of children continued to stay in their hometown to farm for a living.
My grandfather's side won the revolution, entered the city, was promoted to an official position, and married a new wife, and this new wife was my grandmother. The two newcomers wanted to return to their hometown and relatives, but they were extremely opposed by their hometown and never recognized their new daughter-in-law. My grandmother hated it all her life and forbade my grandfather to contact her hometown, so she lived her life like this.
I don't understand why my grandfather never mentioned the past again, and I never asked a pair of sons and daughters in my hometown, why didn't my own flesh and bones worry about it? Why don't fatherly duties be fulfilled? Moreover, the grandfather I know loves our children very much, my childhood is with him, he loves to steam fish for me the most, and whenever the school holidays, he takes me to the beach for recuperation. I can only guess that perhaps because the wars and struggles we have experienced are too complex and too tragic, people are extremely tired and just want to live in peace. Only when there is stability can there be safety, and safety can only survive, and the former children can only become a drag. Or maybe he has the guilt of not being able to save his father for his ex-wife's family? Or is he cold and thin, and I don't really understand him? Or maybe it was like that in those days.
In any case, rural children without fathers are in the ravines, and the tragic situation can be imagined. The eldest son, my uncle, grew up and gave birth to two sons, and the two sons gave birth to several grandchildren. The two children were not willing to farm and make a living, and they ran a small business of artillery battles, who wanted an explosion accident, and both of them were killed. Oh my God! Have you ever opened your eyes for a second to see this miserable man's house! How can you dump all your ills on one family! My uncle, one man, one man raised several grandchildren. One man, who had never extended a finger to his father, who was an official in the city.
02
I've seen my uncle only twice, once when he was very young and unremembered, when he came to my aunt's house. The other time was when grandpa died and was buried six years ago. Although Grandpa closed his eyes and ears, many other relatives were secretly in contact with their hometown.
My family's tradition is that women are in charge, and since I was a child, I have listened to my aunt and grandmother tell the story of how their mother led the family through difficult times. My aunt and my family are in the same city, when I was a child, my favorite thing was that a large family came to her party, she always had endless fruit biscuits on her table, as soon as she saw me, she hugged and kissed and kissed "Oh yo, I really miss you." Later, when my aunt was old and needed to be taken care of, she found a few girls to be her nannies, these girls spoke with a bit of an old accent, everyone came over as a teenager, after a few years, some went out to study, and some went home to get married and have children. Sometimes others advise the aunt and grandmother, the little girl who knows how to take care of the elderly, you change a middle-aged better, still stable, but she never refused.
Once, I listened to my mother discuss with my father and wanted to persuade My Aunt Xiaomin, the nanny of my grandmother's family, to continue to go to school. When my mother saw me coming over, she pulled me aside and said do you know who Xiao Min is? Xiao Min is the granddaughter of my brother in my hometown, before that Dan Dan was the granddaughter of my old sister, my hometown is too poor, your aunt took them out as nannies, and gave them a few thousand yuan a month.
Later, I heard my mother talk more frequently about asking this Hui Hui about the university entrance examination, to help that Liang Liang find a job, and that Shao An, the salary is too low, I have to find someone to ask him, it is not easy for young people to be stressed, and it is still necessary to help. My aunt was old, and my mother took over the baton.
After Grandpa's death, my mother always said, "My father must miss his sons and daughters very much," and always said that he wanted to do something for my father. But I think not, she just can't see her compatriots suffering, she is living well, but when she thinks of her flesh and blood relatives in her hometown, her father is not the same life, she feels that the good days are hot, and the relatives who are killed are like knives that cut off meat, charred corpses, weeping wives, hungry children, and can't stand it when they think about it. The same is true of the aunts and grandmothers, their hearts are engraved with pity and love, one loss and one glory, that is the heart specially carved by God, it is the respect for life that women melt in the blood, it releases a transparent and huge rope, which leads them to help, protect, and save.
03
Time flies to this day, and this is the third side of my uncle I will see. He is in his 70s, and today he came to the city from his hometown to do three things: First, to see a doctor, stomach cancer. Second, visit my father's grave. Third, I want to consult with my relatives in the city to see if I can change my grandson's post.
The thought of seeing him soon made my heart tighten.
Last night my mother said on the phone that she had found a good doctor, and the doctor took a look at the case and said, no need to treat.
04
Today about in grandpa's cemetery, my mother said that you are busy and do not use it, I will accompany him with your father. I said I was going. She said she was afraid that he would bring a red envelope to the baby (my daughter) and would not let me go, but I thought that this time I really had to go. Along the way, I was distraught, I always wanted to remember what my uncle looked like, I was too young when I first met him, there were too many people the second time, I didn't see his appearance too clearly, only the impression was that he was a small old man who was black and thin. At that time, I didn't understand the shallowness of life, and before I had the opportunity to get acquainted, I would have no chance. Thinking like this all the way, approaching the tomb, oops, the boots I was wearing were too loud, rattling and bumping between several walls of ashes, I felt embarrassed, cut away the silence, offended the gods.
"Oh! Here you go! "The side of Grandpa's wall of ashes poked out my dad's head, and after two more steps closer, my mom walked out around the wall. At this time, the legs were still moving forward, but the neck collar was pulled by something as if they wanted to push their bodies back. Suddenly I didn't dare to see my uncle! What do I say when I see him? What if I want to cry? What if he cried in front of my father's portrait? What should I say? Is it my turn to speak?
The man in front of him washed away his thoughts, and he saw me and came up and shook my hand, warm, not heavy or light, so just right to hold my hand. "Knife power, uncle misses you." He laughed. "I miss you too, uncle." Not knowing what to say, I followed him in response. He wore a navy blue wool collar cotton coat, open arms, and wore a zhongshan suit of the same color inside, flat and neat, like the people in the city. For a moment, my mom said twice, "Buckle it, it's too cold." He even said, "It's not cold, it's not cold." It is true to say goodbye, the second pair of boots in my heart fell, how can it not be cold, the weather forecast reported that the morning was minus 5 degrees, not to mention that he was still sick, was he wanting his father to look at himself inside and out?
The uncle wears a thin cotton duck-tongue hat, and one side of the ear is bent by the brim of the hat, like an elf with long ears in science fiction. Such a soft ear is indeed a reclusive nature. The face under the hat, the same color as the bark, almost exactly the same as Grandpa's big eyebrows, under the big eyes, holding up the thin bridge of the nose, under the cheekbones on both sides of the nose, the cheeks are deeply sunken, and the thin lips are so pursed. Too much like that! I cried out in my heart, he was the most like Grandpa. Grandpa is tall, our descendants in the city, my mother 173, is the shortest, the men are more than one meter eight, but the uncle in front of me, up to 165 bar. Father's later good days, he did not enjoy at all. I held these hands and did not loosen them, and my eyes were tightly fixed, trying to remember all the details of this person.
The columbarium wall is divided into four or five floors, and there is only one cubicle room for each person. A few of us stood in a row, bowing one, bowing again, and bowing three times. I stood up straight, looked up at the tombstone, the center of which was embedded with my young grandfather, and underneath it was engraved a line of words : "Generations of remembrance, the whole family respects." There was a row of yellow chrysanthemums under the tombstone, and they must have had a ritual before I came. I rolled my eyes and saw my uncle looking up too. What was on his mind? Are you telling your father that your child will come to see you for the last time? For a moment, the sour energy that had been holding back surged up again, and I swallowed a mouthful of spit and struggled to block it with my throat. The acid gas was intercepted, and the water in the eye socket also returned somewhat. I stood still and didn't dare to move, afraid that if I twisted slightly, the gas that I was struggling to suppress would spew out from the outlet of my body. I was stiffening my body, and suddenly I felt my hands hanging on both sides stretching and contracting my fingers one by one, as if I couldn't stop, and the hard qi in my chest slowly loosened. Just like wanting to fart and can't put it, holding back, the fart gradually dissipates from the skin, and the emotional gas also finds an outlet on its own.
"That's it." The uncle waved his hand, "Gone." We followed him outside, and the cemetery was silent, and no one spoke again. Walking to the gate, he stopped under the plaque of "** City Revolutionary Cemetery", turned around and held out his hand to me again.
"My uncle won't come after that, and my uncle is not in good health and inconvenient."
"Okay." I took his hand and nodded vigorously.
"From now on, you, and my grandson, it will depend on you here."
"Okay." I nodded harder.
My mom pulled out her phone and said, "Let's take a picture here." ”
Standing next to my uncle, on a northern winter morning, the sun had dispelled the cold of the morning, I raised my face and lifted the corners of my mouth to look ahead.
"Okay, I've done it, one, two, three."
I'll finally remember what he looked like.