The old house in my memory is always associated with my mother, because my mother lives in the old house. Because of my mother, the old house looks warm and lively; when my mother is there, the old house looks warm and lively. It is the holy place in my heart. No matter how far I travel, I always want to go home and visit. Living in the “pigeon cage” of a city that is indifferent to people, I will always miss the laughter, warmth, spaciousness and comfort of the old house in my hometown.
The earliest old house in our family was a three-room adobe house. The exterior walls of the house are made of rammed raw soil, while the interior walls are made of mud bricks pressed from pond mud and straw. The interior walls are made of Guanyin soil and then whitewashed. The roof is sloped. Because the family is poor, they use The fir wood used as the beam is no thicker than an arm and looks particularly thin; if we can't afford wooden purlins, we use two small bamboo poles wrapped with straw ropes instead. The curved red tiles covered on them are homemade by the village and interlocked with each other; some The beams were bent under the load. Over time, the straw ropes rotted. The few tiles fell off and were broken. The walls were already mottled. During the rainy season, there was heavy rain outside and light rain inside the house. Big pots and small buckets were everywhere. To catch leaks and sometimes scoop water out of the house, the danger of house collapse often weighs on the parents' minds.
Although the old house is low and dilapidated, it is a paradise for me to grow up. On the fourteenth day of the first lunar month in 1971, when my mother was going through the pain of death, she gave birth to me in the old house. Looking at me who was as thin as a kitten, the midwife shook her head and said: I'm afraid it will be difficult to raise this child!
As the old saying goes, "The emperor loves the eldest son, and the people love the youngest son." What's more, I am a weak and sickly youngest son! At that time, my family was poor and we often couldn’t open the pot, but I had to keep up with my nutrition. My mother used an earthen pot to simmer the rice until it was very mushy, added lard that no one else could eat, and then fed me spoonful after spoonful. Sometimes, my father would get good things from outside and give me supplements. Once, my father bought back a turtle, saying it could cure bedwetting, and asked my mother to make soup for me to drink. Somehow after getting through it, the turtle turned into black coal. My father complained about this for a long time, and my mother also complained about it for many years. Just two days before her death, my mother was very happy to see me coming back to see her. She brought a large bowl of cold water, soaked the cake I bought for her in the water, and carefully mixed it with a spoon and her hands. Holding the bowl, he walked tremblingly in front of me: "I, Xi'er, didn't drink the turtle soup that time. It's simmered this time. You have to drink it!" I took the bowl with tears in my eyes. Didn't my mother's seemingly abnormal behavior reveal her love and guilt for her son?
My mother loved me and was known to do everything for me. I could eat things that my brothers and sisters wanted to eat but couldn’t, including brown sugar placed in the cupboard and food hung from the beams in winter. When it came to speculating, anyone who touched it would be beaten. My brothers and sisters got greedy, so they ordered me to do it, so that the brown sugar jar was empty after a short time. Holes were dug into the bag hanging in the air, and the bag was also deflated a lot. My mother knew it was me, but she pretended not to know.
It is precisely because of my mother's "preference" for me that when I was a child, I was introverted, shy, and particularly Oedipus. To this day, I am laughed at as a "pants bag (good-for-nothing)!" It makes me blush. I drank breast milk until I was three and a half years old. The eldest sister said that her mother was exhausted when she came back from a day's work. I was having a good time, but I suddenly fell into my mother's arms. No matter how much others laughed at me, I just immersed myself in sucking the milk and didn't care about anything else. I slept with my mother until I was eight years old. If I were not afraid of being laughed at by my classmates, I would not be willing to sleep in the same bed with my second brother. Because I am used to my mother shaking the cattail leaf fan for me all night in the summer, and I am used to her hugging me to keep me warm in the winter. I also often tickle her and help her warm her bed. In my childhood memories, I often sat alone on the doorstep, waiting blankly for my mother to come back from work. At that time, my mother was my sky and my sun!
My mother never shied away from her love for me in front of my brothers and sisters. She would praise and reward anyone who took good care of me, and whoever did not take good care of me would be nagging and scolded by her. My parents were already middle-aged when I was born. They were worried that when they got old, no one would take care of their son's education and starting a family. My nickname is "Le'er". Although it is a common name for the youngest in my hometown, it also means that I need the care of my brothers and sisters. My parents have high hopes for me. They often discuss my future. One of them said that Leer should study hard and become a national teacher in the future! One said that it would not be bad to work in a big factory! Anyway, we can’t stay in the kiln (in the village). Finally, after all is said and done, I still hope that my brothers and sisters can support me in the future.
In the mid-1980s, the eldest brother and eldest sister got married one after another; the second and third sisters worked in the ceramics factory in their hometown. The family's situation improved, and my parents saved some money, so they tore down the old adobe house and rebuilt a new house on the original foundation. It was made of red bricks to the top, and the roof was made of thick fir purlins and red tiles. Everything has been renewed, and the interior walls are painted white. Compared with the previous old house, it looks taller, grander, and safer. The mother looked at the new house and smiled from ear to ear: "Now, my son (second brother) and Le'er will both get good wives in the future!"
Sure enough, the new house was built. In the next few years, happy events continued in the family. The second sister married in Xinjiang, the third sister also found her husband's family, the second brother also found the bride he wanted, and three years later, I got my wish and became the bride of the Great Green Wall in the northern border area. part of it.
Later, my family's fate was the same as that of the entire society. It went through a period of hope-producing but turbulent years. First, the ceramics factory in my hometown closed down, and all my family except me suddenly became unemployed and homeless.
The brothers and brothers-in-law worked everywhere and worked many times hard, but could not get much money back; the sisters and sisters-in-law took care of the children at home and looked for opportunities to do odd jobs to make ends meet; the sick father did not make it through after all and left his mother behind. At this time, I had just started working. Although my income was not high, it was relatively stable. I would bring some money back to my mother from time to time, and I finally got through those difficult years.
In the years between starting a job and getting married, I went home a lot. I spent almost all holidays in the old house, and I developed a deep relationship with the next generation of my family. No matter which brother or sister's child they are, they all respect me. Every time I go back, the shouts of "Master Xi" and "Uncle Xi" come to me, which makes me smile with joy. My mother, brothers and sisters were overjoyed to see me back, and I was surrounded by a feeling of happiness. So when I felt unhappy later on, I would always think of the warm old house and my dearest family members who lived in it. All frustrations, difficulties, and depressions disappeared.
After I got married, I went back to my hometown less and less often, but my old house still held a lot of weight in my mind. During the Chinese New Year, I will take my wife and children back to stay for three or two days, so that they can experience the excitement of the Chinese New Year in the countryside and the enthusiasm of relatives. At this time, my mother was still in good health. Every year on New Year's Eve, she would burn a big tree bag to keep the old house warm, so that we could stay warm during the New Year's Eve. The eldest sister, brother-in-law and their children, the second brother and I were all gathered around my mother, enjoying themselves, eating snacks, watching the Spring Festival Gala and chatting.
The life of the second brother and eldest sister's family became more and more prosperous. They bought new houses in the county and moved out of the old house. The elderly mother still insists on living alone in her hometown. She said that the house in the countryside is spacious, and you can grow vegetables and do activities. More importantly, there are old folks and elders who have lived with her for decades. Sister, she couldn't bear to leave.
On weekdays, I live with my mother in the old house, leisurely and lonely. During the holidays, our family met to go home, and the old house became lively for a short time. My mother’s smile also accumulated into wrinkles in the past few days. As she waved as she watched us return to the city, my mother's wrinkles would slowly unfurl, and life would return to its former peace.
As my mother grew older, the old house became increasingly dilapidated. It no longer had the tall and handsome image it once had. Among the modern buildings that surrounded it, it looked so low, dilapidated, leaky, and damp. , dimness seems to have become synonymous with it, but the old house stands so stubbornly; and my mother also rejected our invitations to the city time and time again, insisting on staying with the old house, living her life of poverty, but contentment.
At the end of last year, my mother's condition worsened and she had to go to the county town for treatment. However, it is not a holiday, and the doctor told us that the old woman’s time is running out, so we should spend time with her. Following my mother's wishes, I took her back to her old house. My brothers and sisters and I took turns returning to our hometown to take care of her and spent the last period of her life with her.
After my mother passed away, the old house became empty. Without my mother’s old house, we no longer have the feeling of dreaming about it, and our spiritual home can only be hidden in our memories from now on. ……
(Postscript: My eldest sister, my second brother, and my eldest nephew discussed with me that we will build a new-style small building on the original site of the old house in a few years, so that we can use it for retirement or vacation* **live.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. After all, the fresh air and beautiful pastoral scenery of our hometown make us nostalgic, and the strong attachment to the old house in our hearts makes it even harder for us to let go! )