In memory｜My uncle is gone, taking away the faint warmth of the long years.

My uncle passed away at 2:40 pm on the last day of November at the age of 83.

During lunch, my mother received a call from my eldest cousin, saying that after my uncle was sent to the hospital, the doctor’s opinion was that no treatment was needed. My mother judged that my uncle might not survive this time, so I told my mother: "You don't have to go back. I will do nucleic acid testing right away. I will go back to see my uncle tomorrow. If he is okay, I will go back and see him. If he really doesn't survive, I will Go back and see your uncle for the last time." After that, I lay on the bed and took a nap according to my own schedule. My mother's cry woke me up. I knew that my uncle was gone. On the last day of November, at 2:40 in the afternoon. Ten, died at the age of 83.

01 My uncle passed away, but my aunt did not cry.

How can I not shed tears when parting between life and death? My sister called me and asked me to persuade my mother not to go back. She was worried that her mother could not bear the grief of her uncle's death. She repeatedly told her mother "don't cry" on the phone, and her mother wanted to see her uncle for the last time no matter what. I believe Tears can relieve pain. I would rather my mother cry freely and say goodbye to my uncle with a crying ceremony. No matter what kind of farewell, it is sad without ceremony.

I shed tears because of missing you, I shed tears because of regret, and I shed tears because I lost an era...

I regretted not letting my eldest cousin pick up the phone when she called my mother. Uncle video, at least, I should let my eldest cousin tell my uncle that I want to go back and let my uncle know how much I care about him. I had thought about it, but I was worried that my uncle was sensitive. I went back because it was not the New Year or the festival, so I didn't say anything out loud because I knew he was dying. No matter how much I believe in the existence of souls, I hope that my uncle will leave with my love for him.

However, I am more worried about my aunt. No matter what the situation is, my aunt makes people feel distressed: when my uncle is here, I worry that my aunt is too hard, and when my uncle is gone, I worry that my aunt is too lonely. I didn't know how sad and howling my thin aunt would be. When my uncle passed away a few years ago, I didn't go home because I was too busy at work. My mother said that my aunt, who was rarely sad, cried so much that I couldn't imagine what it would be like for a couple who had lived together for nearly 60 years. It’s hard to leave, it’s so painful that I don’t want to live.

But when my mother and I rode in the car all day to cry in front of my uncle’s funeral, my aunt came out and said to me: "Liangyu, don’t cry! Your uncle passed away peacefully."

There is an old saying: There is no filial son in bedside for a long time. There have always been filial sons in front of my uncle's bed. However, these "filial sons" did not serve my uncle very much. It was my aunt who always served my uncle.

Eight years ago, my uncle was lying in bed due to a stroke. During this period, he had a gallstone operation. I have lost count of the number of times I went to the hospital. Almost every time, he recovered from his dying breath. , all life is taken care of by my aunt.

My aunt is not in good health. Although she is six years younger than my uncle, the hospital diagnosed her with diabetes, cancer, and synovitis in her kneecaps. For a while, my aunt used a small bench with crutches to support her. of one's own body. Although the twins' cousins ??are not far from their parents' home and they come back often, it is always their aunt who takes care of their uncle's daily life.

No matter whether it is spring, summer, autumn or winter, my aunt scrubs my uncle's body, feeds him, helps him from bed to wheelchair, and from wheelchair to bed. In addition, whether she originally lived with her cousin and sister-in-law, or later lived with her cousin, my aunt never asked anyone to help me when taking care of my uncle. She also had to wash, cook, clean, and take care of the vegetable garden. For eight years, I never got bored. Even the doctors and nurses at the hospital lamented that an old man from the countryside had been lying in bed for several years without any odor. Even professional nurses could hardly take care of him so thoughtfully. My aunt said: "I only have one wish, that is, your uncle will walk in front of me. If I die in front of him, no one will be able to take care of him."

We all lamented how my aunt's body could bear so much. Sickness and such heavy physical exertion.

My aunt herself is very calm. She said that what the doctor said is very scary. I never think about these things. Many diseases are caused by scaring myself. As for life and death, her aunt seems to take it very lightly. Maybe her uncle's departure before her just fulfilled her wish, so we can't see her sadness.

On December 3rd, the Taoist priests started chanting sutras at 4 o'clock in the morning. Except for asking the dutiful son for his money, I listened hard and could not hear a single sentence of the lyrics. The funeral was held at 5:18, and dozens of cars followed my uncle's hearse. I didn't know if anyone was accompanying my aunt. I looked back at her, and she was still as calm as before, watching her uncle's coffin leave without shedding a tear.

02 Uncle, there is nothing but a lot of people

Spring Festival 2016

In fact, it is difficult for me to use "contribution", "hard work" and " Words like "kindness" are used to describe my uncle. My uncle has no special contribution in the whole big family. Even when he is planting rice in the fields, he is polite, spotless and unhurried. He even looks a little... Very indifferent.

If I had to use one word to describe my uncle's fate, it would be "human". I often tell people that my uncle’s house doesn’t have a lot of anything, it just has a lot of people.

My uncle has seven children, one son and six daughters. Because the uncle has fourteen children from these seven children; in the era of only children, only the eldest cousin has two children, and the uncle has eight grandchildren, four of whom are already married, so the uncle's grandchildren have There are twelve of them; now all the grandchildren who have married have given their uncle a great-grandson, and there are five great-grandchildren. In this way, the number of descendants reproduced by the uncle is thirty-one.

But more than that, our family belongs to a "matrilineal family", with my grandmother as the core family. My uncle's three sisters, namely my aunt, my mother and my aunt, gave birth to seven children in total. , these seven nephews also formed a quite large lineup, all of which also surrounded the uncle.

Not only that, my uncle’s status in the family seems to be established not only by the children of my grandpa and grandma, but also by the two major branches of my grandma’s family: one is my grandma’s brother and my uncle. When he was young, my grandfather drove a ferry on the Yangtze River and gave birth to two sons and a daughter. My uncle died in a ship fire. He has at least fifteen grandchildren. Even my mother doesn’t remember the other one very clearly; My grandmother’s sister is my great-aunt. Because during the war, my great-aunt went out to serve as a soldier at a very young age and his whereabouts were unknown. My great-aunt waited with her only daughter for half a life, and this daughter gave her six grandchildren. These two branches are both at Shishou, across the river from us.

When I was a kid, I would often visit my mother’s cousins’ house. I also saw my uncles and aunts bringing their children to my grandma’s house. There seemed to be certain rules about the way guests were treated. The sexual ritual does not necessarily involve New Year celebrations, but spending a period of time every year during the off-season to stay with relatives. We call this "visiting relatives."

The feeling of "visiting relatives" is great. I like the fresh family relationship when my aunt and grandma bring my cousins ??to live with me. My aunt and grandma look very much like each other. My cousins ??are all good-looking, but that half-baked feeling always makes me hope to perform better in front of them and capture some of their beautiful memories.

What impressed us most about our uncle was that he always brought us delicious fried dough sticks every time he came. He asked us to sit down and distribute them one by one. It has been a long time, and I still vaguely remember my uncle’s voice and expression. I believe that all of us sitting at the table were swallowing our saliva while waiting for my uncle to distribute the fried dough sticks. I remember that every time my uncle would stare at me and call my mother's name "Xiaodong", I would be a little shy and say: "I am not Xiaodong." Then my uncle would say with satisfaction: "I think you are just like Xiaodong." From that time on, I knew very clearly that because I looked so much like my mother, I was loved by my grandmother’s relatives, including my uncle.

Relatives usually go to grandma’s house. As long as relatives come, we will all gather there.

Almost all the scientific names of the children at home are given by their mother and aunt, and my uncle neither worries nor interferes. Only when I was 7 years old and in elementary school, my uncle asked me to give my cousin a scientific name. This was the only time he "interfered" with the child's name. What happened was this:

Because he didn't want to take my father's surname. Li, we need a scientific name similar to my grandma's surname Zheng. According to the names of my uncle, my mother's generation and my eldest cousin, our family chose the surname of my grandma's family and the surname of my grandpa's family. The eldest cousin's name is Zheng Xianjun, who was named by my mother. I thought the name sounded good, so I asked my eldest cousin: "I want the name my mother gave me." My mother said: "The name that my sister has already called cannot be given to others. Let me give you another name."

"I will do it myself", so I simply looked up the dictionary to name myself. The word "ling" sounds nice and has a good meaning, so it is called "Zheng Xianling". My cousin happened to be one year younger than me, because that day there happened to be a primary school in the village, and it was right in front of my uncle's house, so my cousin planned to go to school with me. My uncle said, "You might as well give your sister's name." Because there was no such thing. I went to kindergarten and never learned Pinyin. All the words I knew had dialect pronunciations, so I named my cousin "Zheng Xianqiong (our dialect pronunciation 'group')" based on the radical and pronunciation of my own name.

My uncle's only son's real surname is "Zhao". My sister is the same age as him. When they went to school, "red and professional" names were in fashion, so my aunt named them "Yongzhong" respectively. , "Yonghong"; the following four, five, six and seven were not named after us. By the time they went to school, single names were fashionable across the country, and it was fashionable for girls to have boys' names, except for the fifth son who had the same surname as his grandfather. In addition to the girl's name, the other four sons, six sons, and seven sons were all called by single names: Zheng Zhou, Zheng Zhi, and Zheng Yi.

It seems that only my mother and aunt worry about how we should go in life. They will encourage us to study and find us jobs. My uncle does not worry much about our seven children and seven nephews. At that time, our teaching conditions were not good, so my cousins, younger cousins, and younger cousins ??almost just let nature take its course and stopped studying if they said they didn’t want to study. I don’t know if this matter has something to do with my mother. Among the four siblings, my mother read the most and suffered the most. My uncle seems to be right about this. None of the seven children in my uncle's family have studied and escaped from the countryside. Now they all have happy families and have no worries about food and clothing.

My uncle didn’t seem to object to me lying about studying in school. When people praised me in front of him, “Are you still a college student?” he would proudly say, “Well, this is our family. The only college student!" He seemed to know that I would suffer a lot after leaving my hometown. He told me very early on: "People come to this world to suffer. You see, there is actually written on everyone's face. The word "ku" is the beginning of the eyebrows, the bridge of the nose is the center of support, and the mouth is the word "口" under the word "ku". "My uncle never worried about it. He stayed in bed for eight years. During this time, the greatest meaning of his life was to passively wait for news about his children and grandchildren: which grandson graduated from college, which grandson got a job, which grandson had a partner. There are always too many things to do here with so many grandchildren. When your grandson gets married, you wait for the next one. When your eldest great-grandson is born, you wait for the next great-grandchild... When a person has no power of action, the only meaning of life is love.

04? My uncle’s gaze is my “original family”

Once I was chatting with a psychological counselor and she pointed out that my character was brought about by my “original family” Flaw: "You always seem to want to conquer handsome and indifferent people. Is it related to your native family and your father?"

The "handsome and indifferent" thing I thought of within a second when I lowered my head The person is not my father, but my uncle. Because when I was five years old, my father was persecuted and was forced to leave us, and my father was not very handsome.

My uncle is handsome. My uncle is about 175 years old, with thick eyebrows and big eyes, a straight nose, a thin face, clean skin, and the face of a scholar. My mother said that my uncle looked like an actor when he got married. Some people who went out of town would sigh that my uncle was good-looking.

Many years later, I met a middle school classmate in Beijing. He also said: Your uncle is really good-looking. It wasn't until my uncle passed away that I met my uncle's sister-in-law, whom I had met decades ago, and she complimented me on how good-looking my brother-in-law was. It's a pity that my uncle doesn't have a photo of his youth. 18 years ago, when my mother returned to her hometown, I took a group photo of my uncle, aunt, uncle, aunt, and my mother. By this time, my uncle was already old.

My uncle is cold and taciturn. My uncle grew up in the countryside and has experienced anxious times and crazy times, but he is rarely excited. In my memory, he is calm at all times, even when he speaks when he is angry, he is calm. of.

The uncle’s first marriage was the same as that of Li Mangeng and Hu Yuyin in "Furong Town". Because the former aunt was the daughter of a landlord, the organization forced the uncle to divorce him, and the uncle did not join the party in the end. , and he never complained. Later, when my father was criticized and persecuted, my grandmother and mother burst into tears, but my uncle was very calm.

When our family was building a house, the bricks my mother rolled were soaked in water due to continuous rain. Several girls in the village used drainage lifts to help my mother drain the water. My uncle found a pedal drainage truck and left.

On a windy and rainy day, the weather was as scary as a disaster movie. Even trees as thick as a bowl were uprooted. My mother told us, "As soon as you hear the sound of the house, run outside." When the rain became lighter, my uncle stood in front of us wearing a raincoat. He said slowly: "It hasn't fallen yet?"

Once, my mother got into a fight with a female commune member to help my aunt. Seeing that she was wronged and couldn't fight with her mother, the female member cried and scolded her mother. Her brother dragged a shovel and was ready to help, but his uncle suddenly appeared and only asked him: "What did you do first?" The young man stopped. .

Another time I was picking day lilies with many people in an open field. The short man Zhifang from the village dragged a shovel and said in a lively manner that day lilies were green manure, which drove a group of people away. I didn't move alone, so he snatched my basket. I followed behind and met Zhao Yunhua, who was a bit powerful in the village. Zhao Yunhua said to Zhifang Chaozi: "Take the basket off for her!" I thought to myself: It's over. , this vicious guy! At this moment, a voice came from the west side of the field: "What's going on?" It turned out to be his uncle who fell from the sky. Zhao Yunhua immediately said to Zhifang Shorty: "Hurry up and return the basket to her!"

Uncle has never been there before He was always so calm, and his cold eyes seemed to contain some mysterious majesty. He always uses indifferent words to resolve difficulties. Even if he is helpless, he will not get angry. Even if there is something really happy, he will not be happy.

However, I grew up under the watchful eyes of my uncle. I remember those eyes that stared at me as long as I can remember. They were not harsh, not gentle, not melancholy, nor sympathetic, but love. ! There is a special warmth in my uncle's eyes. When a group of us children come and go, those eyes always follow me and make me feel happy under his gaze. Even once I refused to take my sister with me and my uncle threatened to throw me into the water and stabbed me with needles in his arms, I still felt the power of love in his trembling hands.

Once, my uncle was hospitalized and went to the intensive care unit. Several of us went to the intensive care unit to talk to him. Later, my mother wanted to know if my uncle was awake, so she asked him: "Can you remember? "Who did you talk to in the ward?" My uncle said, "Liangyu." My mother said that my uncle was partial to me. Even my twin cousins ??were favored by my uncle because one of them looked like me.

The last time I saw my uncle was during the May Day holiday this year. My mother followed my aunt into my uncle's room first. He was calm when he saw my mother. I then walked in and called "uncle" (because my mother was staying at the hotel). (I have been calling my uncle "Uncle" since I was a child). My uncle's tears instantly flowed out. He tried hard to raise his head and called me in a trembling voice: "Liangyu!"

But , but my uncle has closed his eyes forever, and those eyes that have been looking at me can no longer follow me..., no, no, no, maybe it's not like this, maybe my uncle's loving eyes are still there A certain place was staring at me. The second night after returning home, I saw my uncle in my dream, wearing a white shirt and a pair of light gray leg-length trousers, walking towards me from the mist...