It is said that when my mother was pregnant with me, my father did not agree to give birth to me.
37 years old, first married, middle-aged to have a son, everyone is overjoyed. But he was as stubborn as a bull and refused to want me. If it weren’t for my aunt to come here in a hurry, there would be no me in this world. My aunt was anxious and called my dad a fool.
She was right, my dad’s brain is really not very bright.
Speaking of which, Dad is also a poor man. He came to this world posthumously. As a result, his mother died when he was less than 3 years old. It was his sister who brought him up. The two brothers and sisters were blinded and struggled to survive. Later, his aunt took him to marry again. My uncle disliked him as a “oil bottle” and never gave him a good face. Coupled with the poor life, my uncle often vented his grievances in life on his aunt. My dad was 19 years old when my uncle first did something to my aunt, and he was going to fight him hard when he picked up the stool at home. In the end, his uncle was severely injured and his entire left arm lost the ability to work. My dad also went to jail for 7 years and lost his reputation as ungrateful.
Of course, that time my uncle beat my dad hard. Dad, who was already taciturn, hardly spoke anymore. Dad had never gone to school, and he couldn’t even count the addition and subtraction within a hundred. But his brain was not injured, at most it was mentally stimulated. Later, his father was released after serving his sentence, and he went to a coal mine as a miner when he was homeless.
When my mother married my dad with two children, my brother was 7 years old, my sister was 3 years old, and my dad was 35 years old. My mother’s ex-husband died of illness and the family owed a lot of foreign debts. Marrying is the only way for unemployed mothers to support their two children. In the eyes of the introducer, with my dad’s life experience, he and my mother are really “right in line”. One is stupid and has a conviction, the other drags children and daughters. Later, we learned that it was not my mother’s virtuous ability that touched my dad, but the two children she brought up. Without the wedding, my dad rode a tricycle and took his simple luggage and moved from the dormitory to my mother’s house. When he appeared in front of his elder brothers and sisters, they were so frightened to hide behind their mother. My dad took out sugar cubes, apples, bananas, oranges, and colorful balloons from the woven bag and put them on the table, looking at the two babies with expectant eyes. My mother said to my sister and my brother in private: “When you look at people, he looks like a child, and his heart is definitely not bad. You have to get along with him.” My family is poor and my ex-husband has been sick all the time. Mom has experienced too many human feelings, so she can look at people better than anyone else.
Gradually, my brother and sister stopped being afraid of my dad. Every Sunday evening, they waited in the alley for his return. Then, my dad took his sister with his left hand, and his brother with his right hand to walk home. The hands of brother and sister are either toys, soda or ice cream, which attracts the envy and jealousy of children all over the street. Their parents said weirdly: “What a fool, raising other people’s children so happily.” My dad really loves his brother and sister. In that era when the children were all free, he was so spoiled, so eye-catching, so out of place. Especially after two years of marriage, his mother was pregnant, and he actually didn’t want his own child, which made the rumor that he was a fool even more solidified. In fact, he feels even more distressed that his mother is an advanced parturient. Besides, her mother suffers from low blood pressure. The doctor said that this age and this physical condition are not suitable for pregnancy. He didn’t want his mother to take risks, he thought it was enough to have my brother and my sister. In those days, my mother was crying for tears, but my dad was unmoved.
In the first two years of marriage, my mother was very selfish, looking for an honest person to help her raise the child. However, my dad truly loved her two children and moved her. Living in the rumors of “a fool to help others raise children”, my mother has her own obsession-she wants to leave a queen for my dad. She once felt sorry for herself, but after marrying her father, she felt that her father was the real poor person. Dad doesn’t like to talk, and only smiles when he sees his brother and sister. He also gives all of the salary paid by the mine every month to his mother. He does not smoke or drink and is very harsh on himself. Dad only be generous once a year, that is, to go to the tomb on Qingming Festival. When my mother went to the grave with her father for the first time, she cried. Because my father could not kneel before his parents’ grave, what he called was “Sister, sister…” Mom knew that he missed his sister, the sister who raised him like a father.
In order to protect his aunt, his father injured his uncle. After that, the aunt, under pressure from her uncle, severed her relationship with her father. My father had visited my aunt several times, but she never saw her behind closed doors. He gave the aunt the money, and the aunt asked someone to send it back, and sent a letter: “If it weren’t for you, my man wouldn’t be the way he is now. From now on, I will return to Qiaolu. Don’t contact me anymore.”
That day, my father cried out “Sister, sister…” heartbreakingly, breaking my mother’s heart. For the first time, she truly felt the pain and loneliness inside my dad. My mother is an activist. From then on, every month my dad handed her salary, she would send some to her aunt. It is always easy to communicate between women and women. In any case, even if you don’t contact, as long as you can help aunt, this is a real comfort to father. My mother’s idea is very simple. Helping my father maintain the relationship with his aunt and having a baby for him is an explanation of his lonely fate. However, my mother never expected that my father didn’t want his children.
On the eve of deciding to have a miscarriage, my mother was crying weakly. In despair, she suddenly thought of her aunt. So, she got up at 3 in the morning and went to see her aunt, begging her to help her keep the blood of this family. The aunt agreed. The aunt who hadn’t appeared for many years came to our house. She slapped her father and cursed: “Fool, if you dare to mention this child, I really don’t have a brother like you.” The eldest sister is like a mother. When the aunt grew up, he always felt awe, gratitude, and guilt, so he didn’t dare to resist. Therefore, under the strong intervention of my aunt, there is me in this world.
According to my mother, during the whole pregnancy, my father said the most words to her: “You have to be better to Xiaoyan and Jianguo in the future.” And this is the longest sentence he said to my mother. Xiaoyan is my elder sister, Jianguo is my brother, my half sister and brother. And when I grew up, I really understood what the same roof, different fathers meant. In order to show his unwelcome to me, he refused to give me a name and rarely even hugged me. Three children were waiting at the alley. He was holding his sister with his left hand and his brother with his right. A normal dad would let his own, youngest child ride on his neck, but I can only pull my sister. The same goes to the commissary. He asked his brother what he wanted to eat and asked his sister to take whatever he wanted. It was my turn and said, “Go home!” No matter how bad my brother and sister did in the exam, he would reward him, and I would get 100 points back. , Also turned a blind eye. That day, my mother got angry at him with my report card. “Why are you so partial? Putting aside your children, at least fairness should be done.” “He came later.” This is my dad, my dear dad. He doesn’t talk much, but one sentence can kill someone. This is also his fool’s logic-whether the child is parent or raised, it depends on first come first!
When I was 7 years old, a big event happened at home. My dad’s mine collapsed. The excavator digged for five days and five nights. Five people were missing and four corpses were found. The only thing not found was my dad. In those days, my elder brothers and sisters stopped going to school. They stayed with their mother every day in the collapsed coal mine, crying earth-shattering. And I was fostered in a neighbor’s house. To be honest, I didn’t feel much sadness in my heart. For me, Dad is dispensable.
After five days and five nights, the master who drove the excavator was too tired and turned off to rest. My brother and sister knelt on the ground and begged. Seeing that the master was gone, the two of them threw themselves into the collapsed mud and rocks, digging with their hands, and shouting “Dad”. The cries made everyone in the mining area cry. So, the miners took their families, shovel and pickaxe to dig with our family. That night, they miraculously found my dad—he was still alive. The iron plate on the tripod blocked a place for him like a god. Even more frightening is that if the excavator advances even half a meter and the iron bucket digs down, the already precarious place will collapse again, burying my dad alive. And for five days and five nights, Dad survived by chocolate in his pocket. It was the imported chocolate he snapped up in the mine supermarket before going down the well. You should know that the coal mines at that time were infinitely beautiful, and the miners had strong consumption power. The entire mining area was called “Little Shanghai”, and there were all kinds of novelties. Dad will definitely buy things like imported chocolate that my brother and sister have never eaten. He spends money on his elder brothers and sisters, as if he had a mine at home.
My dad who survived, saw my brother and my sister who rushed up, his eyes were almost lost, trying to find something. Until the neighbor’s aunt took me to the ground, his eyes looked at me fixedly and for a long time, very weak, but also very firm. Two drops of clear tears rushed out of his face full of soot. He couldn’t speak, but pointed to the mouth pocket of his shirt, which contained three chocolates. Someone pulled it out for him. His eyes still looked at me steadily, and he exhausted his last strength and said: “Eat…” That year, I was 7 years old, and for the first time in my life, my dad looked so squarely. But with this look, I understood the thousands of words in his heart. Some love, the mouth is closed, but the eyes speak it out. That day, watching me put chocolate in his mouth, he closed his eyes tiredly. Two lines of clear tears rushed out of a spring in my heart.
Dad survived. After he recovered, my mother scolded him, scolded him for dying, and refused to eat up the chocolate. He insisted that it was what he had left over, which happened to be 3 yuan left. Who can believe it? The only thing I am sure of is that Dad has me in his heart. Of course, there is another very important thing: my dad was planed back with both hands by my brother and my sister, which moved the residents within a few kilometers, and since then the words “a fool raises other people’s children” disappeared. And I, since then, have also acquiesced to my family’s rules: My father loves my brother and my sister more, and my brother and my sister love him more than I love him.
My brother was admitted to university, and then went to work in Beijing. Every time I saw him off, my dad burst into tears. When my sister got married, her new home was just two blocks away from ours, and my dad was still sad for a long time. However, when I got married, he had a showdown with me: “I will help your brother and your sister take the children in the future.” My mother asked him with red eyes, “Does it have to be so hurtful?” He actually replied, “Yes “That day, I was also a little sad, so I asked: “Dad, why?” He said, “Your brother and your sister… are the same as when I was a kid…” He said this sentence in his heart. When he came out, the blue veins on his head were violent and his eyes were scary red. I also understand. How difficult it was for him to grow up as a child, how crazy he will make up for my brother and my sister. This is his genetically powerful obsession, and I can’t fight it.
Years later, I gradually realized that my dad is not stupid, he is just a tendon. Whoever treats him well, he treats him well; he says whatever he thinks. However, when my brother and sister had children one after another, my dad lost the ability to take care of grandchildren. In his seventh year of retirement from the mine, he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. The first half of his life was dumb, and the second half of his life was demented. God was really “kind” to my dad. Dad was often lost at first, and then it became difficult to take care of himself. He often yelled at night, disturbing his neighbors. Seeing that my mother was going to be worn down by him. My mother has diabetes, my brother is far away in Beijing, my sister has two children, the oldest is 5 years old, and I just got married. I persuaded my mother decisively and decided to send him to a professional nursing home. There, he will receive professional care and we can continue to live. Mom couldn’t bear to drag us down, but asked the nursing home to be closer to home so that she could take the bus to see him every day.
My brother and sister can’t bear it, but what can they do? The only thing I can do is for my brother to go home and drove his car around the nursing homes in this city, and choose one that looks good and is relatively close to home. On the day we sent my father to the nursing home, we didn’t let my mother go with us, for fear of her being sad. We stayed with Dad in the nursing home for a day, taking him to familiarize himself with the environment. We went to the cafeteria for lunch, and the four of us ate the same meal, but he chose to put a piece of meat for his brother and sister from his own plate. In his chaotic memory, he often calls my sister his sister and confuses my brother and me. However, at the dining table, he once again served his brothers and sisters as he did when he was eating at home, treating me as air. The brother and sister burst into tears instantly, and never swallowed a grain of rice.
When bidding farewell at night, it is more like parting from life and death. My sister was crying in the car on the return trip, and said over and over again: “Dad, I’m sorry.” The brother sitting in the passenger seat asked me to stop and said he wanted to walk back by himself. As the car drove away slowly, I saw in the rearview mirror that the middle-aged brother kept wiping his eyes with his sleeves. I am a little envious of them, can love Dad so deeply. But the relationship between my father and I, in any case, has not sublimated to the height of the two of them.
It wasn’t until the next morning that I knew that my crazy brother and sister had reached an agreement overnight and brought Dad back home that night without delay. Sure enough, crazy father raised crazy baby. My brother persuaded my sister-in-law to start looking for a job in this city and wanted to come back and develop. My sister hired a nanny for my dad to take care of him during the day, and she stayed at home to take care of my dad at night. They said: “You can wait for everything else, but the chances of taking care of your father may not be much.”
You can never imagine how much my brother and sister will get used to my dad.
My dad was making a fuss about going to work in the middle of the night, so my brother really rode his bike to the former mining area, and then pointed to the darkened office and said, “Lao Zhang, it’s off work.” My dad is going to go almost every day. Once the alleys were waiting for his children, they took the trouble to take him to the alley that is still still there, and accompany him to recall the past ten thousand times. Dad treats my sister as his sister, and asks her sister for candy, hoops, and glass balls. These sisters can satisfy him, and he often cries for his mother, so his sister has to take him out for a walk. Son, until he forgot about it… They changed back to the pair of bare hands, looking for the father’s children under the cave-in, trying to catch the lost father in the spiritual world. This time, the miracle did not happen.
In the summer of the second year of my father’s illness, he suffered a sudden heart failure and entered a state of dying.
The whole family stayed in front of the hospital bed. He searched in the crowd. In the end, he only recognized my sister and me. Then, he took his sister’s hand and said weakly: “Sister…Dongsheng…Dongsheng…” Dongsheng is my name, and my name is Zhang Dongsheng. None of us reacted. He said again: “Sister… Dongsheng.” My mother cried and helped him translate, “Your dad recognized Xiaoyan as his sister. He entrusted his sister to take care of Dongsheng.” My sister wailed. , Holding his father’s hand and said: “Dad, don’t worry, we will take care of Dongsheng…” After hearing this, two lines of tears flowed down my father’s thin cheeks. This time, he really left.
Fatherly love is my rebellious journey, but because of this, I have brothers and sisters who treat me like pearls. My dad is gone, leaving us with a loving home. This is a career that many people are unable to accomplish, and it is also the light of him, a fool.
