Narrated: **
I was born in the countryside, and there are three siblings in the family, I am the second, the eldest brother farms in the countryside for a living, and the younger sister sets up a stall in the town to do business.
My eldest brother and sister didn't read much, they became a family very early, and I had good academic performance since I was a child.
After graduating, I was assigned to work in the city, and later met my wife, and because of my work, I made my home in the city.
My parents had a total of 6 earthen houses in their rural hometown, and a few acres of land, and when the family was separated, my parents still gave me 3 earthen houses, and they were afraid that when I returned to the countryside in the future, I would not even have a place to stay.
Since I have a job in the city and my eldest brother lives in the countryside, most of the family's land is given to him, and I only have a small amount of land.
After getting married, my wife and I had a son, and we both had stable jobs, good incomes, and a happy and ordinary life.
When my parents are here, no matter how busy I am or how far away the journey is, I will take time to go back every Chinese New Year, because when my parents are there, my home is there.
Later, my parents passed away one after another, and my hometown no longer had to worry about it, so I rarely went back.
I thought that my wife and I would grow old, but fate played tricks on people, in the first year after my wife retired, I was diagnosed with cancer, and in just a few months, my wife left me, I couldn't accept it, and I secretly cried several times alone.
After my wife died, my friends persuaded me to marry again and introduced me to someone, but I refused, and I still couldn't forget my wife.
Later, I also retired, living alone in the county, life is very simple, every time I fry a dish, it is enough for me to eat for a day, after eating, I will go to the park for a walk, three o'clock every day, there is no fun, there is no one to talk to.
One time my son came home and saw me sitting alone in front of the window in a daze, and he thought I was too lonely, so he took me to the city to live with them.
When I went to my son's house, I thought it would be more lively, but my son was busy with work every day, leaving early and returning late.
I don't even have an acquaintance in a big city, and the doors between neighbors are closed, and there is no human touch. I was not familiar with the surrounding environment, so I only stayed at home every day, cooked food, and waited for my son to come back from work, feeling like a lonely old man.
As I grew older, I became more and more homesick, missing my hometown and my childhood playmates.
Every time in the dead of night, when I lie in bed, the scenes of my hometown come to my eyes.
That night, I made a temporary decision to go back to the countryside to retire, where is my roots, and when I am still in good health, I will go back to my hometown to see, not wanting to leave regrets for myself.
The next day, I told my son that I wanted to go back to the countryside to retire, live a rural life, grow some vegetables, raise some chickens and ducks.
My son asked me why I suddenly wanted to go back to the countryside to care for the elderlyI said that I don't even have a playmate in the city, and when I am bored in the countryside, I can still go to the door to chat, and my eldest brother and sister are also in the countryside and have a mutual dependence.
My son was a little worried about me, so he said, "Dad, you haven't been back for so many years, and you suddenly went back to care for the elderly, and you are afraid of your living habits."
I reassured my son, no, no matter how many years I have lived outside, my hometown will always be my roots, and when people are old, it is like a leaf falling back to their roots.
When my son heard this, he felt that it made sense, so he agreed with me to go back to the countryside to care for the elderly.
Before returning to the countryside, I planned to spend 200,000 yuan to renovate the old house in the countryside and buy some household appliances and furniture, but my son stopped me.
My son said to me: "Dad, you go back to care for the elderly alone, spend 20,000 or 30,000 yuan, just decorate the house simply, and then replace the basic household appliances, don't spend too much money, our next generation will not go back in the future, you might as well keep the money for your own pension."
I thought about it and felt that what my son said was right, I went back to live alone, and it was not cost-effective to spend so much money on decoration.
My son and daughter-in-law knew that I was going back to the countryside, and on the night I left, they also took me to the mall to buy a set of clothes, which cost more than 1,000 yuan, and I was very filial.
After I packed my luggage, I was ready to go back to the countryside, and when I left, my son specially explained one thing to me: that is, don't show your wealth casually when I go back, and when the village people inquire about my pension, don't say that I have 6,000 yuan a month, but only 2,000 yuan a month, which is only enough for food and drink.
I didn't think so, I felt that my son was too worried, but my son said that the mentality of rural people now is that they think you are poor, afraid that you are rich, and it is easy to attract hatred if you have more money.
I think rural people are quite simple, why do you need to hide yourself so much, not to mention that the money is earned by my own efforts, if I don't steal or rob, why can't I say.
I threw my son's words out of the clouds and didn't listen to them at all.
After more than four hours of driving, I finally returned to my dream hometown, and the neighbors saw that I was back, and they all greeted me one after another, very warm, and I had a brief chat with them.
The eldest brother was doing farm work at the entrance of the village, and when he saw me coming back, he hurriedly put down his work and asked me to go to his house for dinner in the evening, and he asked my sister-in-law to make food for me.
The old house that my parents left me back then has been empty and uninhabited, it has long been dilapidated, and there are weeds growing in it, so it cannot be inhabited for the time being.
On the night I went back, I borrowed it at my eldest brother's house, and my sister-in-law cooked a table of dishes, which made me feel the warmth of home.
When I got up early the next morning, I hired a few workers in the village to renovate the old house, painted a large white wall, and painted a layer of cement on the ground.
In less than a week, the old house was renovated, ventilated and dried, and I went to town to buy some common appliances and a bed.
In this way, I finally have a place to settle in my rural hometown, and I am very satisfied.
I grew some vegetables in the field in front of my house, and raised a few chickens and ducks, and I lived happily and fully every day, walking on the country road, and feeling the air I breathed was sweet.
Since I returned to the village, many of my neighbors have come to my house to play and talk to me about some things in the city.
Once my neighbor Lao Zhang came to my house to chat, and he suddenly asked me: "You are educated, you have worked in the city for so many years, and now your pension is over 10,000 yuan, right?"”
When I heard this, I honestly replied: "* There are so many, the monthly pension is only 6,000 yuan".
When Lao Zhang knew about my pension, his eyes turned red, and his tone of voice changed, and he said: "It's still your fate, you can still get so much pension in the office, I have done farm work for most of my life, and I don't have a pension, it's too unfair."
After saying that, Lao Zhang left, and it didn't take long for everyone in the village to know that I had a pension of 6,000 yuan a month.
On that day, the eldest brother came to the door with a little fruit, I warmly entertained the eldest brother, served him tea and poured water, the eldest brother complained to me about the bitterness, saying that the nephew was not angry, and threw the two children at home, let them take them, and did not take a penny every month, and the family did not even have living expenses.
I felt uncomfortable when I heard this, and I sympathized with my eldest brother, so my eldest brother asked me to borrow 5,000 yuan, and when he said that, he sold the grain and returned the money to me.
Seeing that my eldest brother was living so hard, I was embarrassed to refuse, so I agreed, after all, there was not much money, and if I didn't borrow it, my eldest brother would definitely be stingy.
Not long after I lent the money to my eldest brother, my sister knew, and she also took the initiative to come to my house to play, and after a few simple greetings, my sister said that my nephew was going to buy a car and pull goods, and she didn't have so much money in her hand, so she asked me to borrow 10,000 yuan.
This is the first time my sister has asked me to borrow money, if I don't borrow it, she will definitely say that I lent money to my eldest brother and didn't lend it to her, so I just borrowed it.
Who knows, some relatives who can't beat the eight poles also came to borrow money, not much, just one or two thousand yuan, I borrowed it all at the beginning.
Some relatives in the back are even more excessive, the family has no money to give gifts, come to me to borrow money, lose playing cards, and also come to borrow, anyway, all kinds of reasons to borrow money, I directly refused.
After I didn't borrow money, I offended some relatives, and they gossiped behind my back, saying that I was stingy, and now that I have money, I don't help, I look down on people too much, anyway, all kinds of ugly words, I can't sleep with anger.
Later, an incident happened that made me decide to move back to the city, and I regretted that I shouldn't have listened to my son in the first place.
The road in our village was built decades ago, it is too narrow, sometimes two cars meet, they can't be staggered, and it is difficult for large trucks to drive in, and when selling fruit every year, it has to be consigned to the designated place, which is very troublesome.
The village organized the widening of the road, and ** took some of the money, but it was still not enough.
The village chief organizes the people in the village to donate some money, donate more if the conditions are good, and donate less if the conditions are poor.
Although I have just come back not long ago, I am also from the village, so I took the lead in donating 3,000 yuan, which I think is enough.
The other villagers all donated 500 or 800 yuan, and only a few donated 1,000 yuan.
As a result, a neighbor in the village saw me donating 3,000 yuan, so he said in a weird way: "You only donate such a small amount of money for a pension of 6,000 yuan a month, and it is too scary, so you can donate 10,000 yuan." ”
I was so angry that I said, "My money doesn't come from the wind, so why don't you donate a few hundred yuan, I have to donate 10,000 yuan." ”
The neighbor said, "Because you have money, if you have money, you should donate more, contribute to the village, and also accumulate virtue for your children and grandchildren, don't you understand?"”
When the other neighbors heard this, they also followed and coaxed, "I should donate more money for moral kidnapping."
To put it bluntly, I have a high pension and are richer than them, a typical hatred of the rich.
I couldn't stand it anymore, so I quarreled with those neighbors, and you and I almost started fighting.
When the village chief saw this, he persuaded us and criticized us, and the road in the village behind us was not completed.
When I got home, I was so angry that I lay alone in the house and couldn't even drink a sip of water.
I began to regret that I didn't listen to my son, blaming me for being too simple and thinking too simple of the people in the village.
I can't help but sigh: I can't go back to my old hometown, things have long been different, and everything has become so strange.
I called my son and told me what happened to me in the village, and my son listened to it, sighed, and blamed me for being too high-profile and not listening to him.
I asked my son to pick me up, I don't want to live in the countryside anymore, there is no place worth my nostalgia in the countryside, and during this time when I came back, there were a lot of contacts, and it cost a lot of money to give gifts every month, which was more expensive than the city.
The tens of thousands of dollars that were kindly lent out at the beginning have not been returned, which is too chilling.
Not to mention the relationship with the neighbors, I had a falling out last time, and even if I saw it, I didn't say hello, and I didn't have the previous neighborhood relationship.
My son drove to pick me up the next day, and I packed my luggage and left my hometown ruthlessly, and went back to live in the city, and I felt much more comfortable when I returned.
Now that the house in my hometown is always vacant, I occasionally go back to clean it and go back to the city after two days, which I think is good.