In the days of Chairman Mao's death

dedicate this to the 45th anniversary of the death of Chairman Mao Zedong!

At 4 pm on September 9, 1976, Central People’s Broadcasting Station and Central People’s International Broadcasting Station broadcast to people all over the world: Chairman of the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Central Military of the Communist Party of China Comrade Mao Zedong, chairman of the committee, great proletarian revolutionary, strategist, theorist, and philosopher, died of illness at 0:10 in September.

I was 14 years old that year, and I was a second-year junior high school student. The middle school where I was studying was at the east end of the street, about 500 meters away from the main street. We had to cross the whole street to get home from school.

I remember that school was over at 5 o'clock that afternoon, and we didn't know the news of Chairman Mao's passing before 5 o'clock in school. But in retrospect, after I walked out of the school, I felt that something was wrong there, because the faces of all the people I met from the gate of the school to the main street seemed to be very serious and serious. No one was whispering, saying Talking and laughing.

I heard the news from the radio in the department store of the supply and marketing agency at that time. Since the street we were in was not the local government ( people’s commune at the time), there were only radios in the supply and marketing agencies on the street. Perceive the outside world. I remember that when a group of four or five students heard the broadcast on the radio, they were dumbfounded. The whole air seemed to stop flowing, and the bustling streets were on the ground at that moment. You may be able to hear it if you drop a needle.

Actually, this is only the beginning of grief. For a period of time after that, until the day of the memorial service, my 14-year-old boy was surrounded by this heavy sadness at any time. The most profound thing at that time should be the scene in the condolence room of the village (it should be the brigade at the time).

The condolence room of our village (brigade) is set in the classroom of the village elementary school, and each natural village group (production team) takes turns to offer condolences. I followed the adults of our production team to express condolences in the afternoon. I remember that I was at the end. The windows of the condolence room were covered with black cloth, and the inside was pitch black, but the portrait of Chairman Mao in front and the wreath of Zhou Zhou could be seen basically. The condolence gradually came before the cry, and the cry quickly turned into crying, followed by the sound of an older man falling to the ground, when the adults came out carrying the fallen man When I got to the door, I found out that it was my pro-aunt in the same village.

Auntie had just been carried out, and it was heard from the front that the secretary of the village (brigade) fainted. Later I heard that this was the fourth time that the secretary fainted. I remember that the party secretary of our village was a hero who fought against the US and Aid Korea at that time, he was not too fat. Some people say that in the past few days, although each natural village group took turns to offer condolences, the party secretary basically stayed in the condolence room during the day.

I don’t know what kind of mood my parents will feel when they pass away, but I believe that everything that happened at that time should be the most true expression of people’s inner feelings, even though I was only 14 years old. .