Author Lao Le
Before his death, my father longed to see me again, exhausted his last drop of blood, and shouted to me for ten days. All the men, women and children in the village were crying, but the son who was guarding the frontier thousands of miles away failed to let him do so. Father left with regret. As a son, I made a mistake that I can never make up for. Besides burning paper on the grave and crying, I wrote this memory to express my grief and comfort my father. Talk is better than nothing.
My father always said that he was as big as Mao Zedong, almost as big as his birthday. However, far apart, he is an ordinary farmer. Growing up on the endless North China Plain, he was like an unknown cow, and was locked up in a little-known village all his life. Few people know him when he is not in the village. He walked all his life, enough to circle the earth three times, but he didn't go out of the village for twenty miles.
Although my father is not famous in history, he is as simple, hardworking and kind as the old peasants of the Chinese nation for generations.
What my father was like when he was young, because he was forty-three years old when I was born, which is unknown. My first impression of him was a rustic old man. The original white square face was rubbed like a crumpled old yellow paper by the wind. The sparse moustache was beaten into three pieces of wormwood after autumn by frost and snow, and the plump chest muscles were squeezed into dull peanut cakes by Japanese brand oil presses. He should have been a young and energetic father, but he was tortured by wasted years and became a hunchbacked old man. In the dark old society, three mountains oppressed my father. However, my father seldom reveals his troubles to us. We have never seen his anger towards the children, his arguments with the villagers, and we have never heard his lies. In the village, he has only three words of reputation-honest man.
Father's hands are dexterous and he is a good carpenter. The furniture in our family is basically made by my father from his own tree. During the slack season, we seldom eat with our father. He either makes doors and windows for his boss or coffins for his family. My father has been a carpenter all his life, and he has never earned a penny for his family. He has only eaten at home several times. There is an old pagoda tree in our home, nearly a thick tree. My father planed it down, sawed it into scraps and made it into a loom. My mother sat on the loom for many years until her death. Five of our brothers and sisters grew up wearing coarse cloth woven by my mother on the loom. Later, my mother used the loom for my sister and me to go to school.
Father can also shovel pots and bowls. Whoever has a broken pot and bowl in the village, whether my dad is free or not, will send it to my home for my dad to give it to me. No matter how busy his father is, he never refuses. He always smiles and says, "Leave it in the yard. I'll let the children take it to you." So, the east and west walls of our house are filled with broken pots and broken bowls, just like two rows of defeated soldiers without arms and legs, standing in a row waiting for the doctor to bandage them. What annoys me most is that someone broke the urinal and sent it to my father to shovel it. The white urine in the urinal stinks. Father doesn't mind, but every time I send them a urinal, I hold my nose all the time.
My father has lived for 8 1 year, so he can be said to be an elder of the three dynasties. I witnessed the decline of the Qing Dynasty, the decline of the Republic of China and the birth of the new China. After the flood, after the drought, after the grasshopper rolled into eggs, after the Japanese dropped bombs, after the earth trembled. I have been in the prison of the Japanese puppet army, robbed by bandits, and in turbulent times, natural disasters and man-made disasters. My father turned his back to the sky and faced the loess, silently contributing to the family's livelihood. The sufferings of modern people are beyond comprehension.
Call a child
My father left the only photo in his life in Hangzhou and took his grandson home, but this is a farewell.
According to my mother, when my father came home from Hangzhou, he took his grandson to the small river in the west of the village and sat on the riverbank crying. Grandson advised grandpa to go home quickly, but grandpa didn't listen, just sobbed. The villagers came to ask what had happened, but my father said nothing. I cried until the sun went down before I wiped my tears into the village. No one can guess why my father is crying. Did he have a premonition that he would never see his son again? Does he regret bringing his grandson back and delaying his future? Or did you realize that you didn't leave your grandson to your son and hurt his heart? It is still a mystery.
My father fell ill less than three months after returning home and was diagnosed with advanced gastric cancer. After lying down, my father went to the private plot in the north of the village to see the blue wheat seedlings, scraped the grass on the back of the ridge, dug a deep pit, which was where he grabbed the soil when he sent his son away, and carefully examined the business situation. Suddenly my eyes were black in the wheat field. My mother asked someone to take my father home and put down a bowl of noodles for my father to eat. My father managed to swallow the first bite and then spit out the second. Since then, I have been living on intravenous drip.
My mother sent me an urgent telegram behind my father's back, and I hurried home like lightning. Father has been unable to eat for more than a month and is as thin as a bone. My father smiled when he saw me, stretched out his withered hand and pulled me to his side, whispering, "Big head, I'm sorry I didn't leave you my grandson." I turned my face and my tears almost fell to the ground.
The doctor said that there was no need for an operation on your father's illness. He insisted on infusion for a period of time, and gave him an analgesic injection when he was in pain, trying to make him suffer less before leaving. I took care of it at home for fifteen days, and the holiday came. See if my father is safe for ten days and a half. Shall I go or extend my holiday? My father saw my difficulty and said to me, "big head, the army is not like a place." Don't go back until your holiday arrives! " I don't think you can come back. "Two days later, when my father saw that I didn't leave, he stopped giving him infusion. He wanted to die early and let his son return to the team early. Knowing my father's thoughts, my mother said to me, "Go ahead, Big Head. Your father won't give any more fluids unless you go. "
Dad doesn't know it's bad to ask for leave in the army. You can't go home twice a year. I'll never see my father again when I leave. However, the father said, "Go ahead, Big Head. I will give you an infusion after you leave, and I will wait for you to come back. " According to common sense, when a person is dying, he wants the person closest to him to stay in front of him. At the last moment of his life, the father tried his best to suppress the feeling of missing his son and drove his son back to the army. His inner difficulties are self-evident. In order to let my father stay in this world for a few more days, I have to leave sadly.
There is a limit to one's compulsion on one's feelings. Feelings are like springs. The greater the pressure, the greater the tension. My father suppressed his feelings for Syl too much, and the thought that he might not see his son before he died exploded like a volcano.
Father's blood vessels have failed, and he can't find intramuscular injection of Demerol. I can only stir up bark-like skin and inject the medicine under the skin. There was no food in his stomach and the infusion stopped, so the father waited for his son to come back to see him. A telegram came, and my father asked three times a day, "Is Big Head back?" Sister said, "Brother got on the bus and will arrive tomorrow." Another telegram was sent. My father asked six times a day, "Why hasn't Big Head come back yet?" My sister said, "My brother got off the bus and will arrive soon." When the third telegram was sent out, my father asked twelve times a day, "Why hasn't Big Head come back yet?" Mother said, "My son is on his way to the north of the village and will arrive soon." The telegram was no longer sent, and my father stopped asking. After a day of silence, my father suddenly shouted at the window: "Big head! Come back! I can't wait. " The whole family hid their faces and wept. On the first day, my father shouted three times in the morning, at noon and at night.
"Big head, come back! I miss you! " Father didn't listen to anyone's dissuasion and shouted stop. The next day, my father shouted nine times.
"Big head, come back! Dad wants to see the last side! " I don't know where my father got his strength. I can hear his shouts in the street. Everyone who heard the sound wiped their tears. On the third day, my father shouted eighteen times.
"Big head, come back! If you don't come again, you won't see dad! " Father shouted again and again, louder and louder, but the whole village could hear him. The whole village doesn't bark or bite, and every family is crying.
Father shouted for ten days, without eating or drinking, without injections or infusions. What's holding him up? His belief that he wants to see his son again is greater than the strength of ginseng in one thousand years. Just because his son is engaged in a special occupation-the army, the father didn't call his son to his side. "Big head! Back to ... "Didn't shout out, my father swallowed his last breath.
I received the telegram of my father's death, only called the leader, and hurried home at night, desperate, just as my father's coffin was carried out of the house, I got home. The villagers opened the lid of the coffin and showed me my father's body. Father closed his eyes with a smile.
Seeing my father off, I was thinking: I devoted my youth to the national defense of my motherland, which was based on my father's loss of happiness in his later years. It should be said that my father completely dedicated the afterglow to the country. Silent dedication and great fatherly love spirit should be imitated by younger generations. Without the fatherly spirit of several generations, how can today's country be rich and strong and people be happy!
1998 spring, the draft was broadcast in Xingtai Radio Station that year.
Completed on June 20th, 2007.