Mother's uncle
Text: Niu Yongchao.
When my mother-in-law died, Lao Li's uncles said to me and my sister-in-law with tears in their eyes: "When you come back for the New Year's holidays in the future, don't forget that there is still your uncle in Huangcun." Today, at the age of eighty-five, his second uncle is the only surviving of his siblings.
The second uncle is the only one of the three uncles who is literate. I remember the first time I met him, he asked me which unit I worked in. When he learned that I was working at the Forestry School, his emotions suddenly became excited, and he asked me loudly, "Is it the Luoyang Forestry School?" That's where your uncle graduated. "I didn't know which uncle he was talking about.
In the following conversation, I gradually understood that my second uncle graduated from our school in the fifties of the last century. However, instead of working in forestry, he chose to become a primary school teacher.
At noon that day, my second uncle insisted that I stay at his house for dinner. During the dinner, he asked me about a few old teachers, but unfortunately I entered the school late and didn't know any of them.
Later, I learned from Lao Li that my second uncle had an upright temperament, and not long after he joined the work, he was sent home because he offended the commune leaders with a cart of charcoal. For the next 25 years, he worked as a farmer and as a substitute teacher in the village. Due to the large number of children in the family and low income, he has been living in poverty. After 1987, the second uncle was reinstated as a public teacher, and the poor financial situation was alleviated.
After that, when I saw my second uncle again, there was a deep respect in his words, as if I, a teacher from his alma mater, had also become his teacher. When introducing me to others, he always deliberately emphasized that I was a "teacher at Luoyang Forestry School", and his words were full of pride.
I once told my second uncle that the school was still in its original place, and the school building was much more beautiful than before, so we lived in the family courtyard of the school, and hoped that he would be able to live in my house for a while when he arrived in Luoyang.
When he heard this, he seemed to have received a holy decree, and every time he saw me, he said to me as promised: "When I go to Luoyang next time, I will definitely come to your house to have a look." However, this "certainty" does not know when it will be realized.
During the Spring Festival of 2016, Lao Li and I went back to our parents' house first, and planned to visit our uncles when we returned to our hometown in Song County. Surprisingly, on the morning of the second day of junior high school, the second brother came with the news of the death of his third uncle. So, we rushed all the way back in the afternoon of the first day of my third uncle's burial.
After meeting the third uncle, we decided to sit with the second uncle. His hearing was not as good as he used to be, and he spoke in a very loud voice. Seeing me and Lao Li, there was a cry in his voice: "Your brother-in-law is also leaving, and I will be left alone in the future." We hurriedly comforted him that he should pay attention to his health in the future, don't worry too much, and protect his body.
Last summer, we pulled some of our old furniture back to our hometown when we moved. The refrigerator we bought when we got married was of good quality, but the capacity was a bit small, and it was a pity to sell it as scrap. That night, Lao Li called his cousin to see if he could come and bring our refrigerator back for his second uncle.
Early the next morning, my cousin arrived on an electric tricycle. He told us that his second uncle once spent 80 yuan to buy a second-hand refrigerator, but it broke down within a few days. Later, he found someone to repair it, and the repair cost alone cost more than 100 people, and he was reluctant to spend money, so he had to leave it idle. Hearing that we were going to give him a refrigerator, the second uncle was so happy that he burst into tears, shouting over and over again: "So far away, why did the babies carry it back?" When we heard this, we couldn't help but feel ashamed.
During the Spring Festival this year, we drove to my uncle's house again. The second uncle was coming out of the house, and when he saw us entering the door, he was so excited that he wiped away tears. He stared at a pair of cloudy eyes, and said angrily to the eldest brother: "Senwa, what are you doing here on a cold day?" I'm fine with you. ”
Then, he shouted to his aunt, who was busy in the kitchen, "Come out quickly, the babies are coming." And when he had finished speaking, he went to the door of the hall and went to get the wood, and said that he would give us a fire.
My aunt walked to the door of the kitchen wearing a floral coat and asked my sister-in-law in a muffled voice, "Who are you?" After the sister-in-law reported her name, she said loudly, "I'm a fool now, and no one can recognize me." ”
Looking at the way she talked to my sister-in-law, I suddenly remembered the scene when I saw her during the Spring Festival last year: when we entered the house, my aunt was lying on the bed in the back room. When her second uncle told her that her nephews were coming, she struggled to get out of bed. When the second uncle helped her into the outer room, her cotton pants were still hanging on her crotch and were not fully lifted. Her tongue seemed to be shortened, and she said "Ula Ula" with her right hand, but we couldn't hear what she was saying. The second uncle explained at the time that his aunt had a cerebral infarction in the winter, so he basically lost the ability to express himself.
Therefore, seeing that her waist is now straight and she can cook for her second uncle, my sister-in-law and I praised her for "recovering well this year". The second uncle also smiled when he heard this.
Every time I went to see my second uncle, when the eldest brother and Lao Li paid for him, I had to tear for a long time. Because he claimed that he had money, he was quite resolute in his resignation. However, looking at his housing and clothing, it is difficult for you to imagine that this is an old man with seven children and a pension of more than three or four thousand yuan per month.
On the way home, we learned from the mouth of the second brother that the eldest cousin of the second uncle's family raised four sons, some of whom worked part-time and some were in school. My cousin works outside all the year round, and he owes a lot of debt just to build a house. Now it costs a lot to marry a daughter-in-law in the countryside, and seeing that the eldest grandson has reached the age of marrying a daughter-in-law, the second uncle saves his salary and the money given to him by other children to supplement the eldest cousin. For this reason, the younger siblings are also resentful of the eldest cousin.
Alas! The second uncle has worked hard all his life, and he is still worried about his children and grandchildren when he is old. But then again, how can a parent not feel sorry for their children? If he has a few children, he must be the most worried about that day. I thought: The eldest cousin must have felt guilty and helpless when he took every sum of money handed to him by his second uncle.
Through the rearview mirror, I saw my second uncle: wearing a faded blue hat and a stained brown coat, standing in the cold wind and waving goodbye to ......
Written on February 20, 2019).
About author】Niu Yongchao, female, from Xinzheng, Henan, is an associate professor at Henan Forestry Vocational College. He has been teaching for more than 20 years, focusing on education and teaching research in economic management and marketing, occasionally dancing and writing, finding warmth in words, cultivating self-cultivation in code words, and making the heart clear and transparent in the opening and closing of words.