If life reaches a trough, every step will be difficult. A person with a firm heart can walk through it with difficulty. But for the weak, it is very difficult, and it is spent in tempering and suffering.
in Dalian in the early 1950s. I have already gone to elementary school, and the suffering of the old lady in the neighbor's neighbor's house in the opposite room has left me with painful memories.
The aunt in the room opposite is from Tianjin. In his early years, he followed her husband to Dalian through Guandong . They had a son, about eight years older than me. I call him Erhei Brother.
My mother said that when Erhei Ge was only three years old, around 1939, Erhei Ge's father never came back after he went out to sea with the boat.
The aunt's husband is an seafarer from a foreign ship company. In that era, seafarers earned more money than ordinary workers, so their family of three lived a prosperous life.
Seaters come back once every time they go to sea, from at least a few months to a year.
That year, as usual, Erhei Ge's father rested at home for several days and embarked on a journey to sea.
days passed quickly. The aunt waited for half a year but didn't see her husband come back. The aunt with a sad face waited hard for another half a year, but her husband was still missing.
Where was there any phone call in that era? There is no news for anyone. The family's living expenses are gone. The aunt was panicked, what was wrong with this child’s father? Tears quietly every day.
How can you live without a source of life? What should I do if I can’t pay the rent and I have a three-year-old son? The aunt is uneducated and cannot find a job.
Fortunately, my father had several coworkers who asked someone to find a rich man to work as a nanny in Dalian, and his salary was very small.
finally has a way out, so you won’t starve to death, right?
The aunt's son plays at my house during the day. It was a famine year, and no one could eat enough. The aunt left the saved food for her son and asked my mother to warm up the food then.
That year, my sister was just born. My mother also struggled to maintain her two children.
No one in the world should not dream of rushing out of the night, but now he can only be tormented and move forward step by step in the night.
Auntie looks forward to it every day, every month, year after year. The poor days get longer and longer.
The aunt comes back very late every day, and her son has already gone to bed. Fortunately, my mother took it with her with all her heart. There was no delicious food, but she could always make her children full.
The aunt was crying in tears, often crying quietly in the house without saying a word.
The nanny's work is sometimes interrupted. If you have no choice, you can just add some vegetables, carry them back in the sack, and sell them in the market for some money and buy some corn noodles.
The night is long. In 1944, I was born, and Erhei brother also reached the age of school.
The experiences of the two families over the past few years were what my mother told me after I went to school.
My sister is only over one year old and died because she has no milk. Later, I had an older brother, who was only two years old, and died for the same reason.
When I was four or five years old, I could remember one thing. What impressed me most was that I often saw an aunt entering the house and closing the door, lying on the edge of the kang and crying loudly. I don’t know why.
When I was twelve years old, my father's unit supported the construction of the Northwest, and our whole family left Dalian.
The day after leaving, the aunt covered her face with a towel and cried silently. Erhei Brother grew up and has not found a job yet, so he worked as a random job for others. Brother Erhei went to the station to see us off that day, constantly wiping his tears.
The aunt is not old, she is only in her forties, but her hair is gray. She has no relatives in Dalian.
From that year, we arrived in the northwest. In the first few years, we still had letters to report safety, but later we gradually lost contact.
In the 1980s, I went back to Dalian to visit my aunt who was in her seventies. That day, I went to the old house to find the aunt and Erhei brother.
A new man who moved in said that he had only been here for two years and had never heard of this person.
I went downstairs in disappointment. When I arrived at the entrance of the alley, I saw the aunt in the same yard downstairs. I knew her, but she didn't recognize me.
I asked her about where the aunt was going, and she said she had passed away a few years ago. Her son had already gotten married and had children, and he didn't know where he moved a few years ago.
I said goodbye to the aunt, and she didn't ask who I was.
On the way back to my aunt's house, tears blocked my view.
I am old now. Only when I recall this bitter history did I understand how deep my aunt was in her heart.
From what I can remember to the years before leaving Dalian, the aunt's crying was always in my ears.
I remember that every time the aunt would go into her room to close the door and cry loudly.
I couldn't understand the crying when I was a child. Looking back now, it is sadness, sadness, grievance, revelation, hatred, hope... I understand the great aunt's so sad.
When I grew up, I once asked my mother, it is not easy for an aunt to take care of a child, why didn’t she find someone else?
Mother said that the aunt always thought her husband would come back one day.
What supports her when encountering darkness in life? No idea. The aunt is just for her son and for the family of three to be reunited.
The aunt used her weak body to carry this heavy mountain for decades, and finally walked away sadly...
