In the cold winter of 1955, with the cry of a baby, I came into this world. My arrival finally relieved the family, who had experienced the loss of their children many times, and the family's expressions became relaxed.
My father's name is Zhou Xi, and my mother's name is Wang Juxia, both of whom are poor farmers. They had a firstborn daughter, but she died when she was one year old. A year or two later, another pair of dragon and phoenix fetuses were born, but the survival rate of dragon and phoenix fetuses was extremely low when the medical level was not developed before, and when they reached the age of 2, they also died in the front and back feet. At that time, my parents suffered from tremendous psychological and mental pressure, and if they could not give birth to a boy and a girl in the countryside, then there would always be gossip and look down on them. Not to mention outsiders, even the elderly in their own family will be very dissatisfied.
At that time, my parents were already very anxious, because as they got older, it would become more and more difficult to have children. But it's useless to be in a hurry about this kind of thing, you still have to take it step by step. Fortunately, my mother was quite able to give birth, and it didn't take long for her to get pregnant again, and after a pregnancy in October, she was finally about to give birth. When the day came, my father invited the midwife to his home early and asked her to wait for my wife's birth.
People who have not experienced that period may not understand that at that time, when giving birth to a child**, they would go to the hospital, and there was a special midwife in each place, which was a livelihood for them. If someone has a child to be born, the midwife will go to the house to help deliver the baby. They will also bring some knives, scissors and other tools, and before delivery, she will ask your family to boil a pot of boiling water, and then she will put these tools in the water to boil, which is equivalent to disinfection. When it's time to deliver the baby, she'll pick up the tools.
When my mother was in pain, the midwife went in, and my father waited anxiously outside for news. But for a long time, my father never heard the child's cry. Just when my father was in a hurry, the midwife came out, and she told my father with a gloomy face: "Because the child's position is not normal, it is very difficult to deliver the baby, and the child does not come out for a long time, but when he finally comes out, he finds that he has been suffocated to death." ”
After listening to the midwife's words, my father rushed into the room. At that time, my mother was very weak due to childbirth, and when she learned that her son was not saved, she was in pain and powerless, so she could only stare at the baby wrapped in white cloth next to the bed. My father walked over and opened the white cloth, only to see a baby boy lying quietly inside, without any movement, as if he had fallen asleep, but the whole body was purple in color but revealed a kind of ominousness.
The midwife was ready to leave after the delivery, maybe she didn't think that she had delivered a lively child, so that the family would turn from a happy event to a funeral, and her heart was not happy, so she did not plan to collect money. But when she finally left, her father insisted on giving her money, and she said to her, "You are the job, and you have to work hard regardless of whether the birth is born or dead, so what should be yours is yours." ”
After listening to my father's words, the midwife became much more relaxed, and finally said a lot of apologies to my father before taking the money and leaving. When the midwife was gone, my father wanted to bury the child who had not survived, but my mother refused, and she said to him, "Let him stay with me a little longer, for I haven't seen enough, because this is what fell from me, and it is my flesh and bones." Maybe he's just holding his breath now, and there is a possibility of waking up later. ”
The father understood the mother's feelings, so he asked the child to stay with my mother a little longer. When it was late and it was no longer clear to see outside, the father wrapped the baby in a cloth, and the mother could not say anything at this time, so he could only let the father do it. After the father had wrapped the baby, he threw him in the basket, then took some incense and paper money, and carried the basket into the night.
The father began to look for a burial place with a basket, and after experiencing the death of so many children, perhaps at this time the father's heart was numb, and his heart should definitely be more disappointed than painful. The father finally chose to choose a remote foot of the mountain, and he dug a pit 50 centimeters long, not deep enough to put the child in. After the child put it in, he quickly filled in the soil. After filling in the soil, he lit three sticks of incense and prepared to burn some paper money. He said while burning: "You and I are father and son, but there is no fate, I have done what I should have done, and I don't want to see today's ending, I hope you will come back from **, don't pester us anymore." If you still regard me as a father, you should do it for my good, and bless me to have a son in the future. ”
So this time, my parents still didn't get God's favor, and it ended with the child's death.
This blow was particularly my mother, one is because my mother is getting older and her physical condition is getting worse and worse; The second is that after many blows, my mother's mental state is even worse. Sometimes I even call my son in my dream in the middle of the night, and when I see someone else's son on the road, I can't move my steps, so I have to go over and kiss him.
A few more years passed, during which my mother never conceived a child, and my parents were ready to think that this was their fate. But when my mother was 40 years old, she became pregnant again. My parents were very happy about this pregnancy, and my father took this opportunity very seriously, and he thought it was his last chance, and it was up to him to be happy or unhappy in the rest of his life.
So this time he was extra careful, since my mother was pregnant, he didn't let my mother do anything, just let my mother concentrate on raising the baby. At that time, the economic conditions were not good, and I could not afford to get some nutritional products for my mother. So my father went to the mountains to catch turtledoves, and he made a lot of birdcages himself, and caught a lot of them every day. When I got home, my father kept them at home, and he would get one for my mother every day. Years later, my mother recalled the incident and said to me, "The reason why you have such a good body is because when I was pregnant with you, your father stewed turtledoves for me every day." ”
Because my mother's nutrition kept up, my mother had a surprisingly large belly when she was pregnant with me. Many old people said, "This must be another twin." "When the mother was in labor, the midwife was the same as the last midwife. At that time, my mother was looking forward to this delivery, she grabbed the midwife's hand in pain, and said with the greatest strength: "You also know the situation of my family, this is my last hope, I hope you will do your best, please!" ”
The midwife looked at her mother's painful appearance and nodded firmly, in fact, she told her mother afterwards that she was not too sure at that time, just to reassure her mother.
My father sat at the door of the room with a chair, seemingly calm, but he was more nervous than anyone else, because every few seconds he had to glance at the table clock on the coffee table, which for him was the equivalent of years. My grandmother kept kneeling in front of the Buddha statue, chanting Amitabha Buddha in her mouth, but in her heart she kept praying for the protection of the Bodhisattva.
This time, it is the hope of all the family, and my family should never do it here.
Perhaps it was really the heavens that sensed the sincerity of all of our family, and it didn't take long for a baby's cry to break through the tense atmosphere in the room, and everyone looked at each other at this time, and the expressions on their faces relaxed.
My father was the first to rush into the house, and at first glance he saw the midwife weighing the child, and after weighing, the midwife smiled and handed the child to my father, and she said, "Congratulations, congratulations, it's a boy, seven pounds and six taels." "My father hugged me and saw that it was a boy, and he urinated on my father on the spot. At this time, everyone present laughed, especially the mother who was lying on the bed, for her, this laughter was an emotional catharsis that had been suppressed for more than 10 years.
To them, my birth seemed to make the family look for the better. When I look back many years later, this is not the case.
(To be continued).