Qing Wei | the fiery red pineapple flower | Zhang Huarong

The fiery red pineapple flower | Zhang Huarong

About the Author:

Zhang Huarong, a member of the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association, a member of the Weihai Writers Association, the deputy secretary-general of the Yantai Creation House of the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association, and a contracted writer for the Supplement of Qilu Evening News. Love life, love to write, so far has written 700,000 words of various works. His works have been included in the "Annual Selection of Chinese Online Literary Works", "Jiaodong Prose Annual Selection", "Jiaodong Writers Family Affection Essay Selection", and selected into the "Jiaodong Prose Twelve Zhang Huarong Volumes", many works published in "Weihai Education", "Qilu Evening News", "Qilu One Point", "Contemporary Prose", "People's Daily" People's Digital and other newspapers and public account platforms, authored the essay collection "The Feelings of Mountains and Seas", won the title of "Excellent Member of Shandong Prose Literature Society" in 2018, and "There Is a SeaGrass House" in 2021. Won the second prize of the first Qingwei Prose Award.

That fiery red bromeliad

Text/Zhang Huarong

On that narrow balcony, there are large and small flower pots, there are orchids, bougainvillea, aloe vera... Whenever I go back, I like to see the pineapple flowers, which are bright red like a fire, and the small balcony is warm and vivid. When I saw this bromeliad, I thought of my mother-in-law.

After fighting the disease for 8 months and suffering from illness, her mother-in-law finally left the land where she had been born and raised for 74 years with infinite attachment to her children and grandchildren, the world, and the beautiful life, and bid farewell to the home she had worked for all her life and loved forever.

Her mother-in-law, who has been working since the age of 19, has dedicated her youth and most of her life's efforts to the cause of education she loves, leaving many unforgettable memories for her students and colleagues.

A student 13 years younger than her, the loyal and simple fisherman, after learning that his most respected teacher had passed away, quickly returned from the sea and braved the rare cold in Weihai to rush to the funeral home, but in the end he could not catch his teacher's last look. The old man's face was blown into bronze by the sea breeze, and a line of hot tears came out of his eyes.

The little girl who studied with her mother-in-law in elementary school, who is now a grandmother, has been walking around with her mother-in-law as a relative for so many years. When her mother-in-law died, she staggered and cried loudly in front of her mother-in-law's coffin with the frankness and sincerity of a simple rural woman, shouting over and over again: "Mother, mother..."

The mother-in-law is gone, and the bits and pieces of getting along with her come to mind——

When I first got married, I didn't have my own house, so I lived with my in-laws and three meals a day, all of which were taken care of by my mother-in-law. Whenever I walked into the kitchen, my mother-in-law would try to get me out, "After a day's work, go to the meeting, I know how tired this job is." "My mother-in-law, who is a teacher, always understands me in this way.

The mother-in-law is a skillful person. At that time, most of them made their own sweaters, and she used her free time to make one for each person in the family. I still remember that she bought a light color of wool, a few days of hard work, a new style, handmade sweater was neatly stacked on my bed, holding this sweater, my heart is warm and touched. Especially whenever the Lantern Festival comes, when every household is busy pinching the genus, she is like a skilled magician, a large pot of several kinds of noodles mixed with fermented dough, not much will become a variety of exquisite genus, that eyebrow, that shape, that charm are all loved. Many people pinch the genus after maturity, and the mother-in-law pinched genus, after ripening, more vivid and vivid. Those noodles that are both beautiful and delicious, despite the passage of time, still remain in my memory with warmth, flashing in my heart, until today.

After the birth of her son, the mother-in-law poured too much love into her son. She is a person with a very good aesthetic taste, buying countless clothes for her son, one by one, which people love; when to read any books for her son who is learning to speak, my mother-in-law always buys them before me. When I came home from work, my mother-in-law always stood at the door with a clean, smiling son to greet me, and at the moment when my son fell into my arms, she always lost no time in reminding her son: "Kiss your mother quickly." ”

When her son was a child, he was often sick, and every fever touched her too much thought, and every time he was hospitalized, especially when he was hanging the needle, his son cried and tried to break free of the nurse's hand, but in the end he was caught by several people, and the scene where the nurse put a needle in that white and fat little hand did not know how many times the mother-in-law was tearful. Whenever the son fell asleep quietly because he was tired from crying, the mother-in-law sat on the edge of the bed, looked at her son for a long time, and then printed a light kiss on her son's white and tender forehead.

From childhood to adulthood, my son's academic performance has always been among the best. Whenever the son held various awards and award certificates to show her, the mother-in-law touched her son's head, and her eyes were full of honey and said: "Look, my grandson is a stick, grandma has reason to believe that it will be better and better in the future!" ”

The mother-in-law is a person with a wide range of hobbies and high interests, proficient in piano, chess, books, and paintings. Often, when we go back, the melodious sound of the piano flutters in the room, causing us to stop and listen and revel in. In her spare time, she never joins those who like to talk about the shortness of parents in the front and back of the building, and she spends more time practicing calligraphy or writing family diaries. Many things that she considered valuable and meaningful were collected and reserved for us to show or tell us when we returned. What is good for health to eat more, what kind of diet damage to health to control, she always said it clearly. When my son was in the second grade, in order to let his son who wrote with his left hand practice a good hand, the mother-in-law accompanied her son to learn soft pen calligraphy for half a day on every weekend, counting nine cold winters, without interruption. In a short period of time, my son's calligraphy has improved by leaps and bounds, so that the teacher who teaches calligraphy saw me and sincerely sighed: "Your son's grandmother, there are too few..."

My mother-in-law liked to drink soy milk, so we gave her the newly purchased soybean milk machine at home. Every morning, she got up early, ground the soy milk, left her own drink, and gave us the rest. Although our two families were a few feet apart, and I told her several times not to send my son home to get it, but always when we were still immersed in sleep, my mother-in-law had gently knocked on the door. What I can't let go of is that one morning in the early winter, my mother-in-law, whose condition had deteriorated, stood in front of my house dressed tightly and solidly, carrying a bag of fruit in her hand: "Did you get up?" Taste the fruit he brought back from Macau..." The soft voice is like a ray of sunshine in the morning light, making my heart warm and bright, and this winter, I will no longer be cold...

The mother-in-law is a kind person, she loves anyone who deserves sympathy, especially those who need help from relatives, she is always generous and generous, but she is frugal with herself.

I remember that time I led my son after school to visit my seriously ill mother-in-law, and as soon as I came to my grandmother's bed, my son's expression was much more solemn, he pulled a chair and sat down next to my grandmother, and a faint sadness was revealed between his eyebrows. We all sat quietly, letting pity and helplessness flow in our hearts. The hour hand pointed to 8 o'clock, I signaled that my son should go back to his homework, he shook his head, looked at me in a low voice: "Is it okay to stay with Grandma for a while?" With a little pleading in my voice, my heart was sour, and I nodded my head in agreement. The son just put his hands on his chin and quietly looked at his grandmother. Perhaps, he remembered the beautiful nursery rhyme scene after he finished playing the hanging bottle when he was a child, while bending down to ride him, while cheerfully singing "A group of little sheep, with small bells, walked down the hill..." Or, remembering the tearful eyes of his grandmother when he was sick and hospitalized as a child and struggling to avoid hanging bottles...

An old man who has paid a lot for his children and this family is gone! Although her departure was expected by us, it was so sudden, and in an instant a life quietly disappeared, catching all those who loved her by surprise, life is so fragile, in the face of death and disease.

……

Over the years, whenever I bought pineapples to remove the green head, I thought of my mother-in-law and the pots of pineapple flowers she planted, fiery red, blooming in the sun. I know that it is not only a pot of flowers, but also the fiery feelings and love of an old man. Let the years pass, it will always open in my heart, open in every ordinary day...

From Jiaodong prose

Editor: Ma Xuemin

One point number Qingwei Heze creative base