Forever nostalgia

It's another year of Qingming, spring breeze, sunset and myriad thoughts.

As a natural result

It has been 15 years since my father left, and his voice, smile and words are still clearly engraved in my mind. When I think of my father, I will cry in my skirt; When I think of my last meeting with my father, I feel deeply grieved.

My father was hardworking, thrifty and optimistic all his life. In difficult days, he took his time and never complained about the hardships of life. For the sake of the elderly and children, he gets up early and is greedy for the black, and works hard. In the early 1980s, when others only planted two acres of private plots, he began to try to plant vegetable greenhouses. During the day, he and his mother weeding and loosening the soil in the shed, fertilizing and spraying drugs. When sweating, my father would joke and say, "Look, this greenhouse is a natural bathing place. After sweating so much, the mud strips on my body rushed down. " Sometimes work is so tiring that my father bows his back and goes in and out. He bent down and worked hard with his stiff neck upturned, refusing to sit down and have a cigarette to catch his breath. In his eyes, there is too much farm work, which takes fifteen or sixteen hours a day, and sometimes even stays up all night.

During the vegetable season, parents work in the shed during the day and take the picked vegetables home by bike at night. In the dead of night, under the dim light, they bent their backs and lowered their heads to carefully sort out, select and bundle the vegetables piled up like hills. My father's eyes were red, my mother's fingers were stiff, and the lights in the village went out one after another, but there was a faint and tenacious light in my small window. Packed my things, my father went out of the house, and occasionally there were one or two dogs barking in the village. He bent his legs, tried to stretch his sore waist, rubbed his eyes, looked at the stars in the night, confirmed that it would be a fine day tomorrow, and hurried back to the house.

At two o'clock in the morning, my parents who just closed their eyes have to get up again. Father will get up early and go to Beicun, 70 miles away, to market and sell vegetables. Mom will make breakfast for dad and see him off. Mother felt sorry for her father and added a poached egg to his rice bowl. Father ate the soup and then quietly took it out. She said to her mother, "Don't worry, I'm strong. I'd better give it to the children!" " They are still young and need to grow up! "

At two or three o'clock in the afternoon, when my mother was anxiously waiting, my father's tired figure appeared in the sight of my family. My mother quickly made a fire and cooked my father the second meal of the day. Sometimes, my mother will complain to my father with distress: "There are so many foods sold in the market, don't you buy some yourself?" You're not broke. Why are you so nervous? How much to buy a little, even if you are not full, is better than two or three meals without eating! Isn't it uncomfortable when you are hungry? Do you think your body is made of iron? "Listening to my mother's nagging, my father smiled twice:" My stomach is made of iron. When I am hungry, I am not hungry. It doesn't matter if I miss a meal or two. There are many places to save money! "Cook your meal, I'm hungry again ..."

My father had acute hepatitis A when he was young. Because there was no money for treatment, he later became a carrier of hepatitis B. Long-term work made his father's body unbearable and hepatitis B turned into cirrhosis. He was forced to sell the greenhouse. During the treatment, he went to work in the kiln in the village. Unable to do heavy manual work, my father took over the work of bookkeeping and brick distribution. Every day is dusty and exhausted. As soon as I got home, my mother urged my father to change his clothes and wash him.

For a while, my father felt that his physical strength had recovered, so he added another job to the post of dividing bricks. During his work break, he began to move bricks backwards. He did the work of three people by himself, and the old skin on his hand was ground into cocoons. I gave him scissors and he didn't feel anything. Suddenly, one day, my father fell to the ground, and his head was only one hair away from the red brick that had just come out of the kiln. Neighbors carried him home, surrounded by his mother, grandmother and many family members. He was sallow and weak. When he opened his eyes and saw his family's anxious faces, he gasped, "I'm fine, I won't die ..." The doctor advised, "Stop talking and have a rest! In the future, I can't do those jobs any more. How can someone work so hard like you? "

His sick father had to give up his job, and he was haggard with illness and pain. His brother urged him to go to the Municipal People's Hospital for examination. When I came back, my brother was in tears. Father is very ill! Emphysema, hepatosplenomegaly, liver cirrhosis, liver malignant tumor. The family is in a state of fear and despair, but the father said frankly to his mother, "Who can live forever?" Now that we have reached this point, don't spend that money any more, just spend as long as you can! You've been following me for most of your life. Don't do heavy work when you're old. Our savings are enough for your old age and won't drag down your children ... "

Father insisted on not being hospitalized for surgery, so his family had to agree to let him go to other places for conservative treatment. He is cheerful, calmly faces his fate and actively cooperates with the doctor's treatment. After a period of time, the tumor did not expand again. This is really great good news! We were overjoyed, and my father was carried away by joy. He insisted on going home, saying that he could be treated at home according to the doctor's instructions. We understand that he cherishes his time with his family and his unfulfilled wish to see his brother get married.

After returning home, my father forgot what the doctor repeatedly stressed about not being able to work. In order to arrange his son's marriage, he decorated the house himself. When the house was decorated, he was exhausted again But he worked hard and built a carport for his eldest son. He started coughing violently all night. He couldn't help missing my two-year-old son, so he rode his bike for more than 60 miles to visit. I can't imagine him sweating and exhausted all the way.

His condition deteriorated further and he began to sleep all night. He moved to the bed next door, fearing that his moaning would upset his mother. Lying in the hospital bed, he couldn't get up freely on his own, so he asked his mother to tie a sheet by the bed and let him pull himself up with this thing. He insisted, don't disturb, don't disturb anyone in the family. ...

I went home to see him at the weekend. Facing my scrawny father, I choked up and couldn't say a word. In the past, my tall and burly father's weight dropped sharply from 150 kg to 70 kg after his illness. I can't bear to see his sunken eyes, brown face and thin arms. Half lying in bed, he said to me weakly, "I'm afraid it won't last long." If you can buy Demerol, please buy me two boxes ... I'm worried that the pain will be unbearable ... If necessary, I'll take an injection to stop the pain ... "I felt sad from the bottom of my heart, and tears swished all over my face.

The next day, I asked someone to buy two boxes of Demerol for my father from the hospital. Father put it by the bed, and his eyes jumped out with a rare light. That's what he expected and was afraid to touch, and that's what he had to plan ahead at the end of his life. In his view, that medicine is God's elixir of life, a pill to relieve vitality. With a smile in his eyes, my father said, "Well, with these, I'm not afraid anymore ... Go back to work, I'm fine ..."

When I went home again, it was a drizzling autumn day. At that time, my father was dying. He lost consciousness and his heart beat irregularly. Father's life-saving medicine is quietly placed by the bed. One box was unopened, and the other opened a small mouth, with two empty glass needle bottles beside it.

My mom said my dad was in extreme pain this week, but he just wouldn't give me an injection. Sometimes he groans in a low voice, and sometimes he gnashes his teeth. When he was sweating with pain, my mother would call a doctor and rush to give him an injection. Later, her father will tell her not to let the doctor give her an injection when she can survive. This medicine is not only expensive, but also addictive. He doesn't want to live by acupuncture. The needle medicine was quietly placed by his bed. ...

My father left. That year, he was just 53 years old. I will never forget 1999 that autumn with light rain. ...

SETTING: No.2 junior middle school in Yingli Town, Shouguang City, Shandong Province.

Tel:15006628112.

Postal code: 2627 17ZH

About the author: Zhu, female, Shouguang, Shandong, member of China Prose Society, Shandong Writers Association and China Natural Resources Writers Association. Many essays, novels and poems were published in provincial, municipal and national newspapers. The work "Bloom the Color of One's Life" was selected as the theme reading of Chinese Literacy Core Reader, a Chinese textbook for primary and secondary schools compiled by the Ministry of Education, and a collection of essays "Green Grass" and "Years Like Songs" was published.