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Read | the person who tied your shoelaces

Read | the person who tied your shoelaces

Wen 〡華明玥

Source: Pin Reading, No. 3, 2022

At the end of winter, the bright and dangling sun shines on the campus at the beginning of the snow, but the bare trees are as full as jade coral.

When the recess arrived, in the primary school behind my building, the children flocked out, and the playground was crowded together in groups of three or five, lively.

A sharp-eyed little girl suddenly shouted to the little boy next to her: "Your shoelaces are open!" ”

The little boy stood still, stood still, and complained, "My mother really is, why don't you buy me Velcro shoes?" ”

The little girl replied crisply: "How childish are the Velcro shoes, you are a primary school student, you should learn to tie your own shoelaces." Then, she squatted down to help the little boy, and let him watch her movements carefully, "Learn, you will grow up." ”

The little girl taught while tying, and in the blink of an eye, the bow-like button was firm and grown on the upper of the little boy's shoes. The little boy was relieved, but the little girl took apart the newly tied shoe belt at a speed that could not be hidden, and kept urging the little boy: "You try!" ”

A few children next to them laughed, as if to make fun of the girl's little class leader's sternness, of course, mixed with a kind of envy for the little boy.

Read | the person who tied your shoelaces

The little girl ignored it, and she demonstrated it again and again until the little boy tied an equally beautiful bow clasp on the upper of his shoe with a clumsy pair of small hands.

The little girl saw that he had learned, and immediately flew back to the team of her companions, she had to hurry up and play for a while, she had just spent six or seven minutes to teach the little boy to tie her shoelaces.

It was such a trivial recess. After a few years have passed, after they have grown up, will the little boy suddenly remember one thing at a moment: there was once a happy little girl who seriously taught him to tie a strong and beautiful bow on his shoes?

100 meters away from the primary school, it is the Municipal Maternal and Child Health Hospital, which is also the place where I have to commute to work every day.

On this day, I saw a pregnant woman who came down from the car and walked down from the waist, probably to do a maternity examination, looking at the body shape, it was about eight months. The father-to-be, who was driving the car, reached out to help her block the roof of the car, afraid she would hit her.

The pregnant woman who had just got off the bus smelled the aroma of plum blossoms in the air, screamed with joy, looked around for the nearby plum tree, and the husband suddenly stopped her, and before she could react to what was going on, she had squatted down to help her tie her shoes.

Pregnant women wear a pair of wide men's sneakers with some puffiness in their ankles. The husband pulled her socks, and seeing that her calves were also a little swollen, he gently helped her to rub them a few times and silently fastened her shoelaces.

Seeing her husband half-kneeling in front of her, repeatedly adjusting the elasticity of her shoelaces, just so that her overloaded heavy body can feel a little more relaxed, the pregnant woman has some feelings.

She gently stroked the scattered white hair exposed on the top of her husband's head, and said lightly: "You hurry back to pack your bags, you are going on a business trip, and you have not done anything." I can do the obstetric examination alone, you can rest assured, the medical care here is very gentle, under the obstetric examination bed, the nurse will help me tie my shoelaces. ”

When a person is young, he travels thousands of miles, but when he is old, he may return to his hometown like a fallen leaf.

The nursing home on Plum Garden Street is inhabited by my father. When the weather is good at the turn of winter and spring, many young people will come to visit their elderly, deliver food, wash their hair, bathe and cut their nails, and push them out in wheelchairs to take them out to enjoy the flowers.

On this day, I came to see my father, and I saw that the grandson of Uncle Xu next to him also came, saying that he would take Grandpa to Xuanwu Lake for a stroll. He helped Grandpa into a wheelchair, put a small blanket on his leg to keep warm, and then found leather shoes that Grandpa had not worn for a long time, wiped them clean with paper towels, and helped him put them on.

At that moment, Uncle Xu, whose hair was neatly combed, put his hands on his knees, and his old waist was straight. When he was pushed out by his grandson all the way, he was a little shy and a little proud and frequently waved to the old guys and caregivers on both sides.

Read | the person who tied your shoelaces

This scene was seen by the orphan who took in the nursing home. The orphan was slightly mentally retarded, and at the age of eighteen or nineteen he was as ignorant as a six- or seven-year-old child, and his speech was unclear.

But he never spared no effort in his work: carrying solar photovoltaic panels, stockpiling cabbage, carrying stretchers, carrying old people with sudden illnesses on ambulances... When you see a job, you do it.

This time, he found another job to do — to help the elderly put on shoes. He followed the example of Uncle Xu's grandson, helping the old people find shoes, wipe them clean, and then crouch down to help them put their feet into the shoes and tie the laces.

A dozen people a day, he played games like tirelessly. Grandparents laughed at him: "This baby, I don't go out, why do I wear such a delicate dress?" ”

The orphan even said with a comparison: "Dress mentally, when your brothers and sisters come to push you out to play, you can save time and play a little more." There is a second sentence: "Grandparents have become sloppy, and children and grandchildren will not like to take you out to play." ”

As he spoke, he lay on the ground and continued to shine and put on the old man's shoes, and the smile on his face grew more and more. The smile rippled in the nursing home, like a gloomy sky suddenly opening a crack between the dark clouds, so that the sun radiated a thousand rays of light.

Editor-in-charge: Zhang Chu | Proofreader: Qin Daixin

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