Ji Xianlin
I have reached the age of nine. In the past seven or eight decades, from the countryside to the city; From home to abroad; From primary school, middle school, university to foreign research institute; From "being determined to learn" to exceeding "not exceeding the moment from one's heart", there are twists and turns, and there are bumps and turns, not only through Yangguan Avenue, but also through the single-plank bridge; I have experienced many experiences, not only after "there is no way to recover from doubts", but also after seeing "another village with a bright future". Joy and sadness go hand in hand, disappointment and hope for Qi Fei. If you want to talk about regrets, you can find them everywhere. To choose the deepest, truest and most unforgettable regret, that is, the permanent regret, is also within reach, because it has never left my heart for a moment.
My eternal regret is that I should never have left my hometown and my mother.
I was born in an extremely poor village in northwest Shandong. My grandparents died early, leaving three brothers, such as my father, alone and helpless. The youngest uncle sent someone. My father and my uncle left their hometown and went to Jinan to make a living. At this time, they are only in their teens and twenties. In a big city where there are no friends, it must have been through hardships that Uncle Jiu settled down in Jinan. So my father went back to his hometown and said he was a farmer, but he had no day to farm. It must have gone through a lot of hardships. Uncle Jiu sometimes sends some money home from Jinan, on which his father lives. Somehow, I found my daughter-in-law, who is my mother.
later, I heard that our family was indeed rich for a while. About the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, Jiu Shu used the last fifty cents left in his pocket to buy a tenth of the Hubei flood lottery ticket and won the prize. The two brothers discussed that they should "return to their hometown with wealth" and go home to raise their eyebrows and spit. So he shipped the money home, and Jiu Shu still stayed in the city, and his father made plans for the village. He bought bricks and tiles and built a house at ridiculous prices. And bought a field with a well at a ridiculous price. At that time, I was excited and really proud. It's a pity that the good times didn't last long, and my father used absurd and bizarre ways, as if Song Jiang was auspicious and open-minded to entertain friends from all over the world. In a blink of an eye, the built tile house was demolished to sell bricks and tiles. Fields with wells have also changed their owners. The whole family returned to the original information. It was at this time that I was born into the world under such circumstances.
of course, my mother experienced this great change personally. Unfortunately, when I lived with my mother, I was only a few years old. Tell me, I don't understand either. Therefore, our family suddenly rose and fell this time, which was only a flash in the pan, and I still don't fully understand it. I'm afraid this will become a mystery forever.
I'm too young to tell you how I live at home. Anyway, I ate very badly, which I know. According to the standards at that time, eating "white" (referring to wheat flour) was the highest, followed by eating millet flour or stick flour cakes (yellow), and the last time eating red sorghum cakes, which were red in color, like pig liver. "White" has nothing to do with our family. "Yellow" has little fate with us. Only the "red" people spend all their time with each other. This "red" is bitter and astringent, which is really hard to swallow. But if I don't eat, I'm hungry. I'm really a little red.
However, children also have their own ways. My grandfather's cousin is a juren, and his wife I call her grandma. Their branch is rich and has land. Although juren is dead, my grandmother is still built in. The family is still very good. Her own grandson died early, so she devoted all her love to me. She is one of the few people in the whole official village who can eat "white". She not only eats by herself, but also sets aside half or a quarter of a white-flour bun for me every day. As soon as I wake up every morning, I immediately jump off the kang and run to grandma, and shout, "grandma!" " She immediately smiled from ear to ear, put her hand back to her fat sleeve, punched out a small bun from her pocket and handed it to me. This was the happiest moment of my day.
in addition, I can eat a little "white" occasionally, which I earned with my own labor. When it comes to the summer wheat harvest season, our family has nothing to harvest at all. My aunt and aunt Ning, who live across the street-their family is also extremely poor-took me to the rich fields in our village or other villages to "pick up wheat". The so-called "picking up wheat" means that other long-term workers have cut wheat, and there will always be a little bit of wheat ears left. These are not worth picking up, so we poor people come to "pick up". Because there will never be too many rides, we only pick up half a basket for half a day. However, for us, this has been a treasure. My aunt and aunt must have taken special care of me. A child of four or five years old or five or six years old can pick up ten catties and eight catties of wheat for a summer. These are all rubbed out by my mother. In order to reward me, after the wheat season, my mother ground the wheat into flour. Steamed into a bun; Or paste it into white flour cakes to satisfy my cravings. So I ate a lot.
I remember that one year, my performance in picking wheat may be a little "extraordinary". On the Mid-Autumn Festival-farmers call it "August 15th"-my mother got some moon cakes from somewhere and broke a piece for me, so I squatted next to a stone and ate. At that time, for me, moon cakes were really wonderful things, and the dragon liver and phoenix marrow were hard to match. I rarely ate them once. I didn't pay attention to whether my mother was eating. Looking back now, she didn't eat a bite at all. Not only moon cakes, but also other "white" ones, which my mother never tasted, were left for me to eat. She probably spent her whole life with red sorghum cakes. In the disaster year, you can't even eat this, so you have to eat wild vegetables.
as for meat, the memory of eating seems to be blank. Next door to my mother's house is a workshop selling boiled beef. The old ox, who has worked hard for farmers all his life, can't plow any more when he is old, so several farmers buy it at a very low price, kill it in an extremely barbaric way, boil the meat and sell it. Old beef is hard to cook, and there is really no way. Farmers urinate in the meat pot, so the meat is rotten. Farmers are kind-hearted. With this situation, they tell their neighbors: "Don't buy meat today!" My mother's family is poor. Although she loves my grandson very much, she can only use clay pots and spend a few dollars to make money. A jar of beef soup is better than nothing. I remember once, there was an extra cow's belly in the jar. This has become my patent. I couldn't bear to eat it all at once, so I cut it piece by piece with a rusty iron knife and ate it slowly. This tripe is really comparable to the moon cake.
"white", moon cakes and tripe are rare. How about "yellow"? "Yellow" is also rare. But although I am only a few years old, I have figured out a way; In spring, summer and autumn; Grass and crops have grown outside the village. I will mow the grass outside the village, or chop sorghum leaves in other people's sorghum fields. The landowner not only does not prohibit it, but also welcomes it. Because when the leaves are split, the ventilation can be improved, the sorghum can grow better and the grain can be beaten more. Grass and sorghum leaves are for cattle. Our family is poor and we have never raised cattle. My second uncle's family has land and often keeps two big cows. My grass and sorghum leaves are for them. Whenever I, a child with less than three pieces of dried bean curd, walk into the second uncle's door with a big bundle of grass or sorghum leaves on my back, I am not afraid to wait on the grass in the cowshed, and I can always get a "yellow" meal. When it comes to the Chinese New Year, I feel in my heart that in the past year, I have made great contributions to feeding cows and have the courage to go to my second uncle's house to eat yellow flour cakes. Yellow flour cake is steamed with yellow wheat and dates. Although the color is yellow, it ranks above the "white", because it is only eaten once a year during the New Year, and things are rare, so the yellow flour cake is expensive.
all I said above was food. Why do you talk about food when you talk about your mother? The reason is not complicated. First, as a child, I care about food easily. Second, almost all the delicious things I mentioned above have nothing to do with my mother. Except for the "yellow", she is not related to anything else. I stayed by her side until I was six years old, and then I went home twice for a short time. Now that I recall, even my mother's face is blurred, without a clear outline. In particular, I find it difficult and easy to understand: I can't recall my mother's smile anyway. She seems to have never smiled at all. Her family was poor and her son was far away. She suffered a lot. Where did the smile come from? Once I went home and listened to my aunt Ning, who was opposite, tell me, "Your mother often said,' If I had known I couldn't come back after sending her out, I would never have let her go!'" "How much bitterness and sadness is contained in a short sentence! Mother doesn't know how many days and nights, looking far away, looking forward to her son's return! However, this son never returned until his mother left this world.
I was at a loss about this situation at first, and I didn't understand it deeply. By the time I went to high school, I was a few years older and gradually understood. However, depending on others, the economy cannot be independent, and there is no ambition, so it can't be realized. I secretly made up my mind and made a vow: once I graduated from college, I found a job myself and immediately welcomed my mother. However, before I graduated from college, my mother left me, forever and ever. The ancients said, "The tree wants to be quiet, but the wind will not stop, and the son wants to raise it, but he doesn't want to stay close." This is exactly what I should say. I can't bear to imagine my mother thinking of her beloved son when she was dying. When I think about it, my heart will crack and tears will fill my eyes. When I rushed back to Jinan from Beiping and back to Qingping from Jinan to attend the funeral, I saw my mother's coffin and the humble house. I really wanted to bump into the coffin and go underground with my mother. I regret it. I really regret it. I should never have left my mother. No matter what reputation, status, happiness and honor in the world, there is nothing like staying with your mother. Even if she doesn't know a word, even if she eats "red" all day.
this is my "eternal regret".
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