"Looking at the bright moon in the night sky, I think of my hometown that has been away for a long time, and I am wandering in a foreign land, thinking of my mother." This "Song for Auntie", as if it was tailor-made for me, sounds pleasant and catchy.
When it comes to nostalgia, the most memorable thing is the bits and pieces left by my mother in the depths of my memory...
In early November 1974, a peasant woman was restless, eating badly, unable to sleep, and restless. At times, she entrusted her best tailor to make a pair of men's corduroy cloth pants, and at that time, she went to the street to buy some daily necessities such as pockets, flashlights, gloves and other business trips. Tired, she lay down, lay down for a while and quickly got up again. In the small courtyard of the farmhouse, it was difficult to hear what she was saying, and everything was proceeding slightly. If nothing else, because her youngest son is going to travel thousands of miles to the distant Qinghai to earn a living. This is my mother. I am the youngest son of this ordinary peasant woman.
My mother had just passed the age of hua jia, her body was somewhat rickety, and her slightly fat and weak face was full of kindness and kindness. The mother's feet are a product of semi-feudal society. It is neither a "three-inch golden lotus", nor can it be regarded as a big foot. The five fingers of the foot were already wrapped into a pointed, and before the heart and heel of the foot could be wrapped, they encountered the women's liberation movement and became a witness of that era. It is with these feet that I support my mother's body and support my home. As far as the women of feudal society were concerned, the mother was fortunate; as far as the women of the new age were concerned, she was unfortunate.
The mother loved each of her children deeply. But I always felt that my mother had a special preference for me. If there was anything delicious, she would keep more for me; with a little spare money, she would always add me a pair of socks or a pair of shoes or something. Although the brother and sister-in-law expressed their dissatisfaction with this preference for their mother in various ways, she still went her own way. As I grew older, my mother's love for me became stronger, just as a hen loves a chick, and I can always be cared for by my mother's love.
In those days, I was completely immersed in the excitement of going out for a long trip, seeing my mother's hard work as a matter of course, silently bearing it, and bathing in the long river of motherly love. Three, six, nine, go forward, my mother used the most local language in the countryside, set the day of my travel on the sixth day, so that I could go smoothly and smoothly all the way.
After several days of planning, everything was finally ready. According to the time of arrival of the train, we planned to leave home on time at eight o'clock in the morning of the sixth, and the third brother took me to the station with his bicycle. Late autumn and early winter, the days are short and the nights are long, and it is dark just after dinner. Before leaving, my mother wanted to make me a long hand-rolled noodle that she was best at. It is a very ordinary home-cooked meal, the process is extremely simple, and it can be completed in a very short time. In order to let me sleep a little longer, so that cooking and eating would not take too much time, so that I could eat her meal quickly at dawn the next day, my mother was almost busy the night before. She first reconciled the noodles, then rolled them open, and then she cut the noodles in advance, neatly stacked them on the board, and covered them with a semi-wet and dry rag. Wash the pot and scoop up enough water in the pot in advance. Cut the ash around the coal stove into a circle and put the wheat grass for coal burning. In this way, you can quickly boil water to cook at dawn. Lying on the kang and sleeping for a while, the mother felt that it was still not ok, and it took ten minutes to boil half a pot of water, wasn't that still a little delayed? No, the mother could not lie down, she got up again, groped to light the kerosene lamp, two small feet trembled forward, the footsteps were very small, slowly walked to the kitchen, the coal stove was raw, the fire was strong, the water in the pot was not boiled first, and finally a thick layer of coal was added to the stove to keep the constant temperature of the coal stove and not to extinguish the fire. In this way, although cooking the next day can save time, but during this period, the coal stove must be burned once within two or three hours, otherwise the coal stove may be extinguished.
All night, in the confusion, I don't know how many times my mother went to the kitchen. Each time, dozens of bellows were pulled, the fire was burned, and a layer of coal was added, so that the same action was mechanically repeated.
By then I was nearly twenty years old, still clinging to my mother's side like a chicken. The subconscious of life tells me that my mother's body emits a sweet fragrance, and I can sleep soundly when I smell her.
My mother was tired, my third brother was tired, and I was tired. We all fell asleep before dawn and slept soundly. There was no alarm clock, no sound of the neighbor's rooster, and we went to sleep waiting for the 5:55 a.m. radio to ring and get up immediately. However, on this day, I don't know what the reason is, but the radio did not sound on time, and the sky was numb and bright, and I did not hear the "Oriental Red" music played on the radio. The third brother was the first to wake up, and as soon as he saw that the sun was about to come out. Mother and I woke up almost at the same time. We all dressed and folded quilts as fast as we could, washed our faces and brushed our teeth. The mother couldn't stop blaming herself, repeatedly saying that she was blaming her for sleeping too hard. My mother prepared for me a long night of food and was quickly prepared, but I had no appetite, and no matter how much my mother persuaded me, I could not swallow, and I could not eat any more than half a bowl in a hurry. Too late to say too many goodbye words, too late to kneel goodbye to my mother, my third brother and I quickly pushed out the bicycle, and went away, and my mother sent me to the door of the house, and sat on the stone bangle at the door, towards the place where I and the third brother went, silently, staring for a long time, refusing to go home...
Many years have passed, and my mother's gaze at my distant figure has been engraved in my heart, and the longer the time, the clearer it is, and I feel deeply remorseful for my hasty departure for a long time. My mother has given so much for me, why can't I just lean down and bow my head for my mother? I should be able to think of such an emotional expression, and it is also a natural thing! A few times I mentioned this to my friends after drinking, and I was so tearful that I couldn't help myself!
Mother was gone, in such a hurry. With regret, with tiredness, with her great and noble maternal love, and with the disease that tortured her to death, she was buried at the foot of Phoenix Mountain behind the village. In the last moments of her life, in the darkness, she kept calling out my nipple name in a weak voice: "Liang'er, Liang'er, where are you?" Mom is really uncomfortable, Mom's body seems to carry a plate of grinding stones, the mother of the pressure can't stand it, quickly buy medicine for Mom, hurry up..."
At this time, I was still far away in the Qingnan pastoral area, nearly 2,000 kilometers away from my hometown. No matter how mountainous the distance is, it cannot block my mother's telepathy. At that time, my beloved wife and I had only been married for three days, and I was still completely immersed in the happiness of the newlywed Yan'er. But I was always thinking about my mother, who was very ill, and my mood was very irritable. When the bad news came, I almost fainted. Many years have passed, and I have always thought that my mother left us within three days of my marriage, that she had completed the lifelong event of all her children, that her tired body and mind had been liberated, that the thoughts hidden in her heart had been released, that she had nothing to worry about, that she could finally die.
The mother suffered from high blood pressure, plus she was anemic before, her body has been very weak, and her body collapsed after a long period of illness, and she was bedridden. The medical conditions in the countryside are very poor, and none of us have thought of pulling our mother to a big hospital to treat her, not even the county hospital. The mother ate several sacks of Chinese medicine, and the earth prescriptions that could be used were used all over, but they still did not save my mother's life. When I was at home, I heard some people say that the rust on scrap iron scrap scraped down and boiled into medicine can play a role in lowering blood pressure. When my mother found out, I told me to quickly find a piece of scrap iron to scrape rust for her. Rusty scrap iron is easy to find, rust is easy to scrape, I don't believe that this soil method can work, but my mother insisted that I couldn't do it. Sick devil, why are you torturing the kindest and kindest people in the world like this!? Heavens, you give me a little bit of my mother's pain!?
The disease is silent, the sky is still the same!
Looking back at my mother's life, it is full of love.
Once, my mother and sister discussed buying me two pairs of shoes at once, one pair of black storm jackets with plastic soles and one pair of blue mesh rubber shoes. Worn on the feet, the right size, my heart is very comfortable, and the vanity hidden deep in the heart is greatly satisfied. A farmer has to deal with the soil every day, and it is normal for the dust to enter the shoes. What shoes I wear every day depends on the labor of the production team. If the activity is not intense, and it is on the road or a flat field, I will put on black leather shoes and work without getting tired. A new pair of shoes makes me feel that I am dressed a lot more foreignly, and my mood is much better. Blue mesh rubber shoes are my favorite, I feel much more handsome when I wear them on my feet, pull the rack car, my running speed is the fastest, and the labor site of the production team is covered with my new shoe footprints. When it comes to ploughing the ground and other labor that is easy to pour soil into the shoes, I put on the usual soil cloth shoes again, and I know that it is not easy for my mother to buy shoes for me, and I must cherish and wear them.
I love to eat my mother's boiled grain grits. Mother boiled grain grits always have great patience, boiled bun grain grits on the top of a layer of corn oil, fragrant overflowing, just enter the door can smell the smell of rice. My mother's stir-fried meat with lotus root seemed to me to be a must. She cut the lotus root into strips, slightly passed in the water, tried to keep more lotus root starch, and then matched with some tofu shreds, the vinegar taste was slightly out, and the taste was very good. My mother is gone, and I can't eat fried pork with lotus vegetables so fragrant anymore.
The mother looks a little fat, in fact, this is fat, premature aging, just over the age of the flower armor is a bit old dragon clock. There is an old girl in the village named Liu Fengying, who has been suffering from epilepsy, and the rural people call it lamb madness, and when she is sick, she foams at the mouth and has dementia in both eyes. Later, she became ill more and more frequently, and fell ill at both ends for three days. Rural people also have no money to see a doctor, so they can only let it develop and resign themselves to fate. Although Feng Ying often suffers from illness, it does not affect her eating and drinking at all, her body is big and fat, and her strength is amazing, and one or two people who are sick can't clean up at all. One day, her mother went out to visit the neighbor's house, gossiping, Feng Ying took advantage of this time gap to burn herself to eat the noodle cake, her mother did not know, until she wanted to cook noodles, she felt that the flour in the noodle urn had gone down a bit, and after repeated questioning, Feng Ying admitted that it was her own doing. Although it is said that it is simply baking a cake, there are still many processes, and Fengying has mastered the time just right, indicating that Fengying's brain is still very clear when she does not make a disease. Another day, Liu Fengying fell ill again, and was tightly bound by her brother Liu Changlu, hunched over, shawled, disheveled, sitting on the ground against the wall, and kept saying smoothly: "Wolfberry, wolfberry, wolfberry crying for the old man." Long record long record steamed bun pot, long record daughter-in-law in the stove fire. "Murakami watching the lively people come and go, more lively than watching the drama." Mothers rarely go out, mostly staying at home and taking care of housework. On this day, my mother had an affair, and just happened to pass by Changlu's house, and when she saw that everyone else had gone to see Feng Ying's illness, she also followed in. Who knew that Feng Ying, who had been honestly crouching there, suddenly became mad, standing up from the spot and pounced on everyone. The courtyard was suddenly chaotic, everyone rushed to run outside, the young man must have run in the front, the mother's two small feet walked slowly, absolutely running at the end, so that Feng Ying swallowed on the back, although it was not bitten, but still left a clear purple mouth mark. Many years have passed, I have not been able to understand, people's back is a plane, that is, crawling there, asking people to hold down, consciously let you bite, it is difficult to bite the flesh. Moreover, Feng Ying was still tied up by her brother Changlu Wuhua at that time, how could she bite a mouth mark? I only learned about it after the fact, of course, I was very angry, but everyone knows that Feng Ying is a lamb crazy patient, what do you do with her?
Her mother gave her a lot of grace, but she didn't like animals like cats and dogs. We have never had a cat or dog in our family. Once, I was bitten by a dog from a neighboring village, leaving a scar on my leg that would never be erased. Although the same method was adopted at that time, it was to cut a handful of hairs on the dog that bit me, burn it to ashes, and then attach the ash to my wound. After returning home, my mother did not believe that this indigenous method could solve much of a problem, and insisted that my father take me to the town's health center and get an injection, I don't know if it was to prevent rabies, but afterwards I was very grateful to my mother, and I did not leave any sequelae, and I spent my childhood in good health.
Another time, the third brother returned from the production team and picked up a badger, that is, a badger, on the way. It is an animal of the family Mustelaidae and badgers. The long, fat, oily egg seemed to have destroyed many of the production team's crops, and was apparently shot by the hunters and escaped to the side of the road. This unexpected harvest made our whole family very happy, my mother showed her superb cooking skills, cooking meat can smell the meat from a distance, a thick layer of ointment oil floating in the pot, people from half the street in the village came to my house to taste the meat, in my memory, the steamed bun is much more fragrant than the lamb steamed bun. The matter was soon known to the hunter in the village, who came to my house to personally check the specific part of the wild monkey's shot, and left with a somber face.
There is nothing wrong with the third brother in this matter, who would encounter a fat sac of a wild monkey and not pick it up and return to their home? However, the hunters in the village believed that the wild monkeys were hunted by him, and the disposal of the wild monkeys should belong to him. In order to calm the people, the mother let the third brother bring a bowl of meat to the hunter, explained the situation in detail, apologized and said a river beach, and finally did not form a big beam because of this.
Mother not only has good cooking skills, but also needs to be passed on forever in a way that we can do with people!
All my life, I have warned myself in my heart, remembering my mother's love and remembering homesickness!
About the Author
Liu Lianghong, pen name Grassland Life, a native of Fuping, Shaanxi, worked in the discipline inspection and supervision system for nearly 30 years, and was a cadre of the Qinghai Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission before retiring. He is a member of the China Forestry Writers Association and the Qinghai Writers Association. In the past two years, he has published dozens of essays in Shaanxi Wentan and Western Prose Anthology.
Source: Shaanxi Wentan WeChat public account