My mother’s “silver ring”
□ Wang Jixun
That winter sixty-four years ago, my mother rode a dark gray donkey from the south of Wenfeng Mountain to the north of Wenfeng Mountain where we are now married My father. When they were about to get on the donkey, my grandmother pulled my mother, who was dressed in red, aside, took off a silver-topped finger from her finger and handed it to her, saying: My daughter, our family is poor, and I don’t have any gold or silver jewelry to give you. I’ll give you this top finger. Although it’s not valuable, it can help you make ends meet.
On the wedding night, my father found out about my grandma’s gift of a thumb. He grabbed his mother's hand and stared at the silver-topped finger for a long time, feeling filled with guilt. He said: I owe you. I have carpentry skills. When life gets better in a few years, I will definitely buy you a top-quality gold ring.
In my memory, this silver top finger is always worn on the middle finger of my mother’s right hand. It is small and exquisite, and seems to have become an indispensable part of my mother's body. On countless nights in spring, summer, autumn and winter, my mother sat on the edge of the kang in the old house, stitching, stitching, sewing clothes under the dim light. My mother seems to be a tireless iron woman. How many times I wake up and see her always working like a dynamic silhouette, working extremely skillfully.
When making shoe soles and making cotton-padded clothes and quilts, the mother uses her top finger the most. In early autumn, after a day's work, my mother began to make winter cotton coats and quilts. The cloth is a coarse cloth bought from the Xiguan cloth market. It is usually blue and gray. It is cut to size and filled with thick cotton of the current year. After the quilt was dismantled, the quilt lining was starched, the old cotton batting was re-bounced and some new cotton was added, and spread evenly, and then the quilt cover, cotton batting, and quilt lining were separated using a large needle and white thick thread. The layers are connected one by one, like a net. At this time, the role of the top finger is unparalleled. And the sole is stitched into the upper, so it can be used in all seasons. At that time, the soles were made of rags and batter glued together layer by layer and dried in the sun. They were hard and thick and required intensive sewing and fixing with large needles and thin awls and thick linen threads. At this time, my mother always straightened the needle, inserted it into the sole of the shoe hard, and then pushed the nose of the needle with the top finger of her middle finger, and the needle penetrated the sole. Repeatedly, the thick hemp threads are neatly arranged into wheat-like bumps on the soles, and the shoes have bones, like steel bars in concrete, with the toughness and strength to compete with nature.
I am used to seeing pictures of women wearing their fingertips and staying up all night to do needlework. Being ignorant of the world, I naively thought that the gold and silver objects on women’s hands were all prepared for needlework.
In my first year of junior high school, the school organized a trip to the city to watch a movie. After the show, a girl in the class asked me and the captain’s son to accompany her to pick up some food. When we arrived at the door, the girl refused to let us in and told us to wait for her at the door. I glanced at the signboard above the store entrance. It was a gold and silver workshop. After a while, the girl came out of the store, holding a small cloth bag tightly in her hand.
I asked: What did you buy?
She blinked mysteriously and said: It’s a baby. I’ll show you later.
Walking to a secluded street corner, the girl opened her little cloth pocket and said proudly: This is the gold ring that my mother got processed here. It is so beautiful.
I glanced at the golden ring that shone in the sunlight, and said in a reluctant tone: That’s it. My mother also has one. It’s made of silver and wider than this.
The captain’s son sneered and glared at me with a very contemptuous look: Your mother’s finger is called the top finger. It is made of silver and is worthless. This is called a ring. It is made of gold and is a treasure.
I felt like I had been deeply humiliated. I pushed the boy to the ground and shouted loudly: You are talking bullshit. Why is silver worthless?
When I grew up, I felt ashamed every time I thought about this. After turning fifty, this feeling of shame began to numb, and now it has disappeared. I got into misunderstandings about the concept of gold rings and silver-topped fingers because the silver-topped finger is extremely important to my mother and my family.Although I don't like collecting, I really want to treasure my mother's "silver ring"; although I don't know how to paint, I want to create an oil painting based on the impression I have of my mother wearing a silver-topped finger and flying needles, and the name is It's called "Mother".
In fact, the promise my father made to my mother on the wedding night has not yet been fulfilled. My father had tried countless times to save money to buy a real ring for my mother by going to work, working overtime, and making furniture for the neighbors on weekends and holidays, but often the savings were almost gone, and the family had urgent needs, and the money was misappropriated for other purposes. The plan to buy a ring fell through year after year.
My father is a worker in a large collective enterprise in the city and is also the workshop director. He has not fulfilled his promise to his wife for more than 20 years, and his self-esteem is suffering.
On this day, my mother’s silver finger suddenly broke. She wrapped it in paper and handed it to her father who was about to go to work. She said: You went to the silversmith shop on Zhong Street to have it melted during lunch. Let’s make another one.
At noon, dad did as mom asked. When he learned that the store also did gold and silver plating, he had an idea and paid an extra five yuan for the processing fee to have his mother's silver finger plated into gold. She originally wanted to make her mother happy, but she was very angry. She threw the gold-plated top finger to the ground and shouted at her father: If it is plated with gold, wouldn't it still be fake? Haven't we managed to live without a gold ring for so many years? We are kind people and we don’t do any cheating!
At that moment, my father was at a loss and full of shame.
is a person who knows when enough is enough. She stopped blaming her father too much, picked up the top finger that was thrown on the ground, blew on it with her mouth, and put it in her pocket.
In the evening, my mother put on the thong and did needlework again. But I found that the top finger had returned to its original color of silver—my mother had used dad’s carpentry sandpaper to polish off the gold plating.
Dad fulfilled his promise on Mom’s sixtieth birthday. At that time, he had been working in the carpentry workshop he had set up in the village for ten years after his retirement. With some savings in his hand, he took his mother and sister to a store in the city and asked his sister to serve as a consultant. Instead of buying a ring, he spent 400 yuan on it. Yuan bought a pair of gold earrings for his mother. Although the number was small, her mother was very satisfied and wore them all the time. We wanted to change her to a better one, but she refused and said: I wear the piece of your father's heart.
Early in the morning of the Spring Festival this year, we, a total of fifteen people from three generations, went home to pay New Year greetings. Joy was written all over my mother's face, and she packed a number of red envelopes, one for each of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The two grandchildren who had already joined the work refused to accept it, but my mother taught them with a serious face: You should be filial to me, but it is the Chinese New Year, and I send you a red envelope as a blessing. It is grandma's intention, so you can't accept it!
It was already noon when the climax of New Year greetings had subsided. The four of us sisters told Yu Niang that our younger brother had bought a 60-gram gold bracelet for her and planned to wear it officially for her at the party on her birthday.
Mother was not overjoyed and remained calm as usual. She took the brown leather box with "China Gold" printed on it from her younger brother, took out the bracelet, looked at it several times, weighed it a few times, and said, "This bracelet is so heavy. Oh, what are you spending all this money on?"
Brother said: This is our intention as children.
My little brother said: It is the sixteenth day of the first lunar monthYou are celebrating your ninetieth birthday. This bracelet looks like a military medal. We want to give it to you on that day in front of relatives and friends.
My sister also said: You are the great contributor to our family.
My mother shook her head and said: I am not a hero, I am your mother and the grandma of your grandchildren. Let's not do that on our birthday. In fact, if each of you works hard, studies hard, and becomes a promising person, this is my greatest reward.
My mother sat there, touching the brand new bracelet for a while, and squeezing the old top finger for a while. I think she must have a lot of emotions, including nostalgia for the past years and longing for the future!
