——From my mother's 90th birthday
Author: Wang Hong (Wumao)
On the eve of the 98th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, we celebrate the birthday of our mother, who has gone through the years of history. June 1 is my mother's 90th birthday. In the face of flowers, cakes and blessings, her face was full of smiles, and she could not see the vicissitudes of life and the hardships of the past, only a happy smile. She suffers from Alheimer's disease and is no longer able to communicate with the outside world. However, the years are silent, and the earth has traces. Her life was not illustrious, but it was anything but extraordinary.
There are many things about our parents' generation that we can't understand. Mother Ouyang Zhao was born in a family of high-level intellectuals, and in 1939, she joined the Fifth Division of the New Fourth Army with her father, only 10 years old, and was still a child. Her father said that the horses that the organization matched him with were often ridden by her, and many times she ran with her tail pulled. During the Anti-Japanese War, the Fifth Division was behind enemy lines and was very difficult. She herself recalled that marching and transferring were commonplace, and she was forced to develop the ability to eat and sleep while walking, and often fell asleep during the march and fell into a blue nose and swollen face, I don't know how she survived.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, before the people could laugh, Chiang Kai-shek launched a civil war, and the Central Plains Breakout was the starting point of the Liberation War, and 300,000 Kuomintang troops tried in vain to encircle and annihilate more than 60,000 troops of the Central Plains Military Region, when she was 17 years old. Her mother's unit took on the task of covering the main force to break through, and she recalled that in the end, she ran wherever there was a gunshot, and felt that there were still her own people resisting. Until the gunfire of the entire battlefield stopped, the mountains were full of Kuomintang soldiers. Because she was not exposed as a party member and was too young, she was taken as a general combatant, and Chiang Kai-shek was released on bail on 60 years old. In the historical background of that time, when I was interrogated after liberation, my mother and a group of comrades from the Fifth Division in the same situation were condemned as traitors. In that era when political life was everything, how heavy should we be burdened with history.
She was finally rehabilitated and reinstated in 1984 at the age of 54. In a casual conversation in '85, she asked if she had any resentment in her heart about being wronged for more than 30 years and delaying the golden time of her life? My heart was shocked, I looked at her in a daze, and instantly understood what loyalty is and what no regrets are, which is not forgetting the original intention. The Chinese nation, which has endured hardships, is fortunate, and it is a historical inevitability that the Communist Party of China, composed of countless such loyal and outstanding sons and daughters, has led the Chinese nation from a blood-stained country to a splendid China, and from being poor and white to establishing the East and crying out for the world.
Life has been decades, but the days have passed day by day. In my mother's words, there are more chaidomi, and there are no more days. Dad's energy is all about work and he can't take care of his family. The food, clothing, shelter and transportation of the eight children fell on her. I can't remember how old I was, but I woke up in the middle of the night several times and saw my mother still stepping on the sewing machine to make clothes for us, and I felt that she must be very tired, and my heart was uncomfortable, and tears came out at once, and when we got up, my mother had already gone out to work.
In 1965, my father left the position of deputy director of the mobilization department of the Wuhan Military Region and went to Xiangfan to appoint deputy secretary and secretary of the Xiangyang County Party Committee. At that time, there was a big difference between the salary and treatment of the army and the locality, and he had to leave Wuhan, but his mother told his father not to worry about his family and resolutely supported him to put his career first. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the situation was chaotic, and my father was captured by the rebels in Xiangfan, and his life and death were unknown. My mother rushed to Xiangfan alone, where martial arts often took place, and there were loud gunshots at night. Mom went through many twists and turns to see my father and brought back a sentence from my father: "Please tell the organization that no matter what happens, I will never commit suicide." Later, when my father talked about this incident, he was very emotional, saying that my mother valued love and righteousness, was not afraid of danger, and deserved to be an old comrade who came over during the war years. When I was in Yichang, my father was the main leader, and my mother still lived a simple life, often beating 1,000 pounds of briquettes alone on Sundays, and then scrubbing the family's clothes to wash away the coal stains soaked in fingerprints.
Dad is always grateful to my mother who selflessly supports her career, runs her family rigorously, and integrates her ideals and beliefs into it. In his later years, he said more than once: "I owe this life to your mother." Before my father died in December 2017, while he was awake for a moment, we pushed my mother's hospital bed to his bed, and he said vigorously: "Wife, I am very uncomfortable, I can't take care of you", and fell asleep, which was the last sentence he left for his mother. This parting of life and death, like the sea of affection, and the scene of thousands of reluctance, is really heartbreaking.
Today, my mother spends the rest of her life in a clean hospital room. Her weak body can no longer see the huge energy that once surged, and she is full of youth. In the black and white of the cycle of the sun and the moon, in the colorful alternation of the four seasons, it is enough to leave a stroke with a clear conscience. Looking at my mother's smile, I felt great comfort in my heart. Her old man is here, and our roots are there. My ears rang with my father's entrustment: "Take care of the old lady and let your mother stand up as soon as possible". I asked myself: Is my 100th birthday a dream?l
In June 2019, he was admitted to Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University
A recent photo of the author of this article
Author's resume: Wang Hong, female, born in August 1957, went to the countryside in 1975, enlisted in the army in 1976, retired in 1998 (lieutenant colonel), personal hobby painting.