After listening to the harsh blind voice for a long time, I still stood there with a microphone. Dull, without any expression. When the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival sprinkled the most beautiful light and generous softness of the year on this vast universe shrouded by the festive atmosphere of reunion, my heart was like a falling stone, and I failed to feel the joy of the festival.
Always rubbing the telephone line in his hand, always looking up at the distance. Looking at those two misty shadows that are always tall in my heart. It seems that this slender string can let me travel through time and space and soothe the two cold hearts of distant parents. It seems that only by holding this small receiver that has just heard my father's sad words can my heart struggling with guilt find a support and release the heaviness and helplessness suppressed in my heart.
Is that really the case? With your love and care, I have written countless moved and grateful parents in my life. When you are old, even from the moment you welcome us into this world with love, are you really doomed to be a mistake forever in front of your sons?
I hung my arm feebly, and at the moment when the phone slipped, two clear tears rolled out a shallow mark on my face that was not easy to find. And those two tearful shadows are curled up in my sad thoughts like two curved exclamation points.
My childhood father, tall and majestic, never bent, became a tall pine tree in my teenager's heart. For me, I am avoiding the hot sun and the cold rain that cuts my skin. Covering all the cold and humiliation in the world. However, I never noticed when this stalwart plant that I will always remember became a dead tree in winter in the cycle of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Vicissitudes become an eternal desolation.
When I was a child, my father was open-minded and talkative. My father always treats everything with an optimistic and positive attitude, whether he encounters setbacks at work or difficulties in life. And never complain, pessimistic and lost. I remember 1976, my father, who was transferred from the army to a cadre, gave up the opportunity to stay in Beijing in order to take care of his grandmother who lived alone, and volunteered to go back to work in Xiahuayuan Power Plant not far from his hometown Zhuolu County, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province. In order to earn more money to support his family, after obtaining the consent of the leaders, my father took the initiative to request that the cadre status be changed to a worker. In this way, my father can earn one yuan and sixty cents more for his family every month.
One yuan and sixty cents. When I was a child, I didn't know the practical significance of this one yuan and sixty cents to a poor family at that time. It's just that for a long time, in my confused thoughts, I couldn't understand how my father could let this dollar and sixty cents buy out the future of his life.
With the increase of rings, the kind grandmother grows old day by day in the erosion of years, and her weak body is like a hollowed-out old tree, which is declining day by day. Increasingly haggard. The incurable asthma made the evil old man snore extremely hard all day long under the maintenance of drugs, and the snoring played the voice of his life. It's just this heavy note that forced my father to try his best to earn more money to maintain grandma's necessary medical expenses and our three little boys' hard-earned mouths.
82 was a year that impressed me deeply. During that time, the country has been reforming and opening up, allowing individuals to do business. As a result, the self-employed became the protagonist of that era. Due to the needs of life, my parents, even the three "little people", also made a struggle to stay ahead of the times.
In fact, buying and selling is just small foods such as peanuts and fruits approved from the market, and then they are sold on the street to earn a very small difference. My father made this decision mainly because grandma's high medical expenses at that time had left us in a situation where there was no rice to enter.
Parents always get up before dawn every day Pack your things, prepare breakfast for us, then push the cart to the market before people come out, occupy the favorable terrain first, then spread it out and start the day's shouting. At this time, dad is usually the busiest person. After he has prepared everything for his mother, it is not far from his time to go to work. Hurriedly grabbed some peanuts and beans from the stall, which was all the nutrition he needed to maintain his work all morning.
Life was hard at that time. As long as I can remember, I never seem to meet my father at leisure, but whenever he stays in my heart, there is always a heartfelt smile on his face. I often think, why doesn't my father have troubles?
In the third year, in order to solve our household registration problem, my father was transferred from Xiahuayuan Power Plant to the No.1 Power Plant in Shuozhou City, Shanxi Province. At that time, our family had basically improved slightly. To be precise, it should be that we have reached the minimum problem of eating and wearing warm clothes. At that time, poor grandma had passed away. And we have grown into big boys almost as tall as our parents in the shuttle of time.
At this time, my father was still so optimistic and open-minded It's just that when we grow up, our eyes have lost the look and humility of the past. And the majestic image of the father, who has always been tall, has also calmed down unconsciously.
Youth, like a badger, yearns strongly for the wonderful world outside and pursues the trendy ideas in the distance. We boldly criticize and demonstrate. Criticize the things around us, criticize all the concepts we understand and don't understand. Criticize our old and outdated father. This shows the arrogance and arrogance caused by all the ignorance and childishness of a child who has not yet grown up. Satisfy our little vanity. And our parents are like loyal slaves, carefully caring for our imperfect hearts and doing their best to build our immature hearts. Willing to let our ignorance and bullying. At that time, they no longer had the bright aura of the past in our eyes, nor did they have the sacredness and majesty in our eyes at that time. In front of our aggressive youth image, they have begun to fade into a false illusion.
Unconsciously, my brother's child is eleven years old. When he has grown into a strong young tree, when we focus too much on our lovely children, I have never noticed the old and decadent state engraved on my father's gaunt face. Last night, something happened some time ago, which triggered this phone call from my father on the eve of the annual Mid-Autumn Festival. However, after 33 years of wasted spring and autumn, I put down my business and cleared up my messy thoughts. I carefully looked at the two decadent old people in the distance who were no longer strong and tall, and were rarely seen or even remembered by my heart.
My brother's children have started school in the fourth grade. On the second day of school, I learned from my brother's phone that my little nephew was injured by the collapsed football door because of the school. And the injury is very serious. At this time, my brother couldn't come back because he was on a business trip thousands of miles away. In a panic, the two poor old people helped their sister-in-law to send their children to the hospital and took all measures that could be thought of and used at that time.
My nephew had an operation soon, and his life was not in danger, but in the negotiation with the school, there was a disagreement because of different opinions. This contradiction was finally considered by my brother as my father's incompetence. The night before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the poor old man finally failed to make it to the end and began to defend his incompetence. This also caused his children to complain more strongly. After running out of the hospital in a foreign land alone in a rage, the poor old father got rid of another child far away in despair? My phone call poured out all the grievances and bitterness in an old man's heart in uncontrollable tears.
I heard the incomplete narrative in great pain. My father's bitter tears were soaked in intermittent complaints, and the thin string stretching thousands of miles was sprinkled in my guilty heart. I haven't calculated how much my parents have done and paid for us from babbling to growing up. But I know that there are only a handful of things we have done for our parents in the course of growing up for more than 30 years. Even zero.
My parents are old, my parents are really old, and they are not the parents who made me respect. From the sacredness when we look up day after day, to the dullness when we are no longer tall, and then to the forgetfulness that rarely appears in our minds now. When the wind of the world blows off my parents' vicissitudes of life, it also takes away the long-term warmth in my heart. Took away my unshirkable responsibility and obligation as a son.
I always appreciate life. He let me taste the beauty of flowers and the romance of sunset in my life journey. When did we ever want to thank our parents and the two ordinary old people who selflessly cast our lives with their flesh and blood? For many years, their great love nourished us to grow and thrive. For many years, it was they who used their own blood and tears to make our originally delicate flower of life more and more beautiful. It's getting brighter.
When I was a child, I looked up. Mom and Dad, you are a bright light in my life, guiding my wandering course with your selfless light. As a teenager, I looked up. Mom and Dad, you are an eternal drop of rain in my life. You moistened the sore of my youth trek with your delicate tide. Now, when you are dusk and the sunset is no longer brilliant, I still look up to you and my parents. Your weak body is my eternal support in this life.
There is a song that says "You are a mistake in my life". My parents, if you really can't choose a mistake, then I know that you will be the most beautiful mistake in my life.