#记录我的2024##头条创作挑战赛##长文创作激励计划#
After my grandmother left, the city that was still busy had an irreparable hole in my heart. I would pass by my grandmother's house from time to time, but there would never be a grandmother waiting for me to come home on the side of the road.
Picture | Stills from "The Two of Us".
Apart from my mother, my grandmother was the first person I received when I came to earth.
I was born in Urumqi. My mom said that it was the most stringent period of family planning, and the words "a daughter" were a blow to my father, well, to the vast majority of men in those days. My grandmother would often tell me how my dad had slumped against the wall at the door of the delivery room and even forgot to take me from the nurse.
I didn't mind that, because my father loved me until I was eight years old.
Nine days before my eighth birthday, my father died in a traffic accident. My mother and I became "orphans and widows" in the world's mouths overnight, and what awaits us is a difficult and obscure tomorrow.
My grandmother asked us to move in with her to earn some rent and ease the burden of life. I didn't want to live here, so I lived until I graduated from college.
At first, I didn't have a good relationship with my grandmother.
Maybe it's because I lost my father when I was a child, and my mother cherished me very much, even a little pampered. I was self-willed and short-tempered, and I often lost my temper with my grandmother and mother over trivial matters. My grandmother always taught me with a straight face: "Your temper is too big, you have to change!" "And what my grandmother, who is neither educated nor powerful, is tantamount to hearing from ear to ear to me, and has never been put into my heart.
As the saying goes, "Three generations don't live in one house", and when we lived with my grandmother, we often quarreled because of differences in living habits. For example, my grandmother and my mother both loved to raise flowers, but my grandmother often took it for granted that my mother's flower branches were treasured beyond recognition; For example, the skirt that my mother kept in the closet and was reluctant to wear was cut into strips of cloth with a mop as a discarded fabric by my grandmother; For example, my grandmother used to get up at five o'clock in the morning to cook, and then follow the home remedies she learned somewhere to stand on the balcony and beat her body, eight times out of ten can wake us up from our dreams, and then there is an argument that has been repeated countless times. Although I was rude and unreasonable to my mother on weekdays, whenever she had a conflict with my grandmother, I would stand on my mother's side like a loyal dog to confront my grandmother.
I felt that all the fault was on my grandmother, but I never thought that it was us who disturbed my grandmother's life.
My grandmother is a native of Fengdu, Chongqing, and as soon as she became an adult, she married a farmer from the same village under the mediation of a matchmaker. When my mother was three years old, she resolutely divorced because she couldn't stand her husband's long-term domestic violence and her in-laws' unanimous bullying to the outside world, and took my mother to Urumqi alone to seek refuge with relatives.
In the second marriage, my grandmother gave birth to three more children, but she was not happy, and she once again suffered domestic violence and even betrayal.
Ever since I was sensible, my grandfather had been lying in the hospital because of years of alcoholism, and there was a picture in my mind that I couldn't tell the truth from the fake—my grandmother stubbornly signed a divorce agreement with the man in front of his dying bed.
Grandma has always been stubborn and strong. When she was young, she worked as a stevedore, painted, and set up a stall in order to survive, and the house that took me and my mother was bought by herself little by little. But when I was young and frivolous, I never seemed to have the slightest respect for my grandmother's legendary life, and even because I had been arrogant for a few more years, I was now middle-aged and realized my shallowness and ignorance.
When I filled in the college entrance examination year, my grandmother, who had never been good at expressing her feelings, became a lobbyist, and she advised me to stay at home to study and not to go to other places to suffer; She said that you have been pampered since you were a child, how can you stay outside and be as dependent on your temperament as at home; She said that you think the south is good, there is no heating in winter, and there are sores on your hands, which is like us here with four distinct seasons, warm in winter and cool in summer.
Later, I didn't believe her, young people always think that they can make some fame outside, I resolutely filled in Jinan University on my first choice, perhaps God took pity on my love affair with my grandmother, my first choice "crashed", and was finally admitted to a 211 university in the city.
After the admission results came out, my grandmother, who had always been saving, generously sponsored a meal for the whole family, and she said that I was the first college student among my children and grandchildren, and I was proud of my ancestors. I was depressed all summer because I couldn't leave the city.
When I graduated from my senior year, I was still unwilling to stay here for the rest of my life, and I had the idea of going out. This time, my grandmother didn't keep me, she just took out a handkerchief from her trouser pocket and stuffed it to me with 500 yuan. I saw her gray hair crawling all over her sideburns at some point, and I remembered that my grandmother was over seventy years old. It's just that aging is a matter of course that I ignore when it comes to my grandmother.
My grandmother saw people very accurately, and not long after I mixed in Guangzhou, I was noisy and wanted to go home because I didn't adapt to the environment and climate. My mother, who loves her daughter, spent 2,000 yuan to buy a direct flight back from Guangzhou, and I fled, by the way, I threw my unrealistic fantasies in the air thousands of miles high.
It was 12 o'clock in the morning when I landed, and my mother and my grandmother came to pick me up. Goodbye to me, a useless scholar, but my grandmother is so happy that she has regained. The taxi drove our grandparents and grandchildren through the midsummer night of Urumqi, and the cool evening breeze blew on us, beating the unbearable sticky humidity and hot flashes in Guangzhou. At that moment, I understood that since my grandmother's fate was sown here like a seed, it was destined for my mother and I to be an unchangeable belonging.
I bought my grandmother a set of cotton pajamas in Guangzhou, which were cheap but still made her happy, because it was the first time I had given her a gift. Later, I found out that the old man is really easy to satisfy, the old man in his early 100s, the wool vest of dozens of yuan, and the rice candy of a few yuan can flatter her.
After work, my mom and I moved back to our own house because of the distance.
Maybe it's the distance that produces beauty, maybe it's because I'm sensible, maybe it's because my grandmother is older, and the relationship between me and my grandmother has never been more harmonious. I earned my salary, bought clothes for my grandmother, took my grandmother to eat Western food, and accompanied my grandmother on trips.
But the years did not wait for me, my grandmother's teeth fell out, her legs and feet were no longer flexible, and the heavy physical labor she had endured for many years when she was young made her sore all day long. That's when I started to fear that one day I would lose my grandmother.
My colleague's grandmother died, and she said that she was brought up by her grandmother, so she stayed by her grandmother's side all night on the last night before the body was said goodbye. I thought that if that moment was inevitable, I would be with my grandmother and take advantage of the long night to see her face.
On the day of the wedding, I promised to let my grandmother go directly to the hotel to attend my wedding, but she insisted on coming to my house to see me off, seven floors, and she climbed up on crutches. Before leaving, the photographer asked my grandmother to say a few words, but my grandmother, who had always been free and tenacious, cried, and she tried her best to restrain herself, so that her whole body was trembling.
When I was in the cave room, a friend said to me with a drunken feeling that he was very envious of me, because it was an unattainable luxury for him that the person who had brought me up would be able to attend the most important day of my life.
My marriage made my grandmother stunned. Every time I made an appointment to go back to see her, she would sit on the side of the road early with a bench and wait for me, and in the orange sunset of the city, she looked forward to it like a child waiting for the holidays. Every time I left, my grandmother would always be reluctant to lie on the balcony to look at me, and told me over and over again, "I should walk slowly, look at the car, and ......come back when I have time", once I felt that I was tired of responding to her with my throat, and when I went out, I would especially explain that my grandmother did not have to stand on the balcony to see me, but every time I walked out of the door of the unit building, I would still habitually raise my head and see my grandmother's head persistently poking out.
It's just that her instructions are getting weaker and weaker as the years go by.
In the second year of my marriage, my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, a past I don't want to look back on.
At that time, I washed my face with tears all day long, and my grandmother didn't think about tea and dinner, kneeling in front of the statue and praying for her daughter day and night.
After the operation, the pathological analysis results came out, it was clear cell carcinoma stage 1C, which was found relatively early, and the doctor said that he would do 6 stage chemotherapy to consolidate the treatment effect. I was going to take my mother to my house to recuperate, but my grandmother insisted that my mother go back to her, saying that I was busy with work and that she didn't have a lot of time to attend to her daughter.
One day after work, I went back to my grandmother's house to see my mother, and I met an old woman surnamed Duan who lived on the third floor. She was carrying a red cloth bag in her hand, and said that she knew that my mother was sick, so she specially brought something to visit. This old woman was not convinced that a "hillbilly" like my grandmother could raise funds for this house, and she always embarrassed my grandmother intentionally or unintentionally, but my grandmother knew that she had no power or power, and tolerance was a necessary rule of survival.
Although she knew that it was a weasel who gave the chicken a New Year's greeting, but she reached out and did not hit the smiling man, and her grandmother still invited her into the house. Sure enough, she first hypocritically greeted my mother's condition, and then began to sell sanitary napkins to my mother with bad intentions, saying that her daughter sent them from Germany, and most of the domestic sanitary napkins are of poor quality, and if they are used too much, they will cause cancer.
My mother had a total ovarian and uterine adnexa resection, where can I still use any sanitary napkins, not to mention that she already knew what disease my mother had, and deliberately said the word "carcinogenic" to stimulate my grandmother, how vicious her intentions were.
I was about to have a seizure, and my grandmother, who was obedient on weekdays, directly issued an eviction order, maybe in her heart she was a little wronged and didn't care, but she would never tolerate the malice directed at her daughter.
The old woman got out of her grandmother's house, leaving behind the bag of "gifts" that her grandmother asked her to take away. I opened the bag and found a couple of expired breads and a mess of snacks inside.
I stopped my grandmother, who was going to find her theory, and told her that she didn't have to bother with this kind of garbage to deal with it herself, and then seized the opportunity to throw the bag in front of the old woman surnamed Duan in public. Although the surname Duan later made it difficult for her several times for this, my grandmother still praised my behavior.
In "Thirty Only", Gu Jia said to Zhong Xiaoqin: "Being a mother is a particularly bad thing. In a sense, it is. After I became pregnant, I became indifferent to everyone and everything around me except the baby in my womb. My grandmother, who has been in a warm relationship for several years, was put into the "cold palace" by me again.
At that time, my grandmother could no longer be taken care of, and for a while I lived with my mother because my husband was on a business trip. For many years, my grandmother's house was like a free hotel waiting for me to come and go, and I came and went freely, never with the owner's permission. I haven't seen my grandmother for a long time, I was very excited because of my small stay, she surrounded me and asked this and that, and kept bringing me food to eat, but I was worried about my mobile phone because of the anxiety of various problems during pregnancy, and I was tired of coping with my grandmother's cold and warm concern.
When I went to bed that night, my grandmother said that she wanted to sleep next to me like I did when I was a child, and I answered, but she hardly slept all night, and kept getting up to cover me with a quilt, sighing to herself. I grumbled angrily, and then went to my mother's room with the quilt in my arms.
The next morning, my grandmother was casually at the dinner table thinking that I was going to cook something nutritious for me when I came back from work, but I seemed to be in revenge for my grandmother's "interruption" the night before, so I went back to my house without saying hello.
Compared to my pregnant woman's need for quality sleep, my grandmother's kindness was worthless.
After my son was full moon, I returned to my mother's house according to the custom of "moving the nest", and my grandmother heard about it and hurriedly asked my uncle to take her to see me, and bought 300 yuan of mutton for me to replenish my body.
At this time, more than two years have passed since the day I got married, and I didn't think about how difficult it was to climb up to the seventh floor again, and my grandmother just declared to everyone who came: "Wash your hands before touching your children." ”
In the first year after giving birth, I suffered from postpartum depression and rarely had time to visit my grandmother. When I was at my worst, I chose to turn a blind eye to the phone calls from my grandmother. What I didn't know was that my grandmother was already an Alzheimer's patient.
Anyway, it won't die, that's how I know about this disease. So even though I was in pain, my grandmother's illness didn't attract my attention. I only know that my grandmother's memory is getting worse and worse, and sometimes she completely forgets what just happened, but she never forgot me and my two children, and she never forgot each of her relatives.
When my son was one year old and nine months old, I unexpectedly became pregnant with my second child. When my grandmother found out, she was overjoyed and said that I must have a daughter this time, and the daughter is good, if it weren't for the fact that she has three daughters, she would not have survived for a long time (my grandmother has a bad relationship with her only daughter-in-law).
With the help of my grandmother's auspicious words, my wish for both children to be fulfilled has come true.
But with one more child, my mom had to take some of the time out of her time to take care of my grandmother to help me take care of the child.
At this time, my grandmother's condition is getting worse and worse, even if she takes sleep drugs, she will stay up late and stay awake all night, looking for her own money in the room. It is more difficult for her to move, and she has to be supported even when she walks on a flat path.
She would call my mother, her own mother (my grandmother's mother had been dead for many years), and she would simply open the door and scold the thief who had stolen her passbook (she had always suspected it was the next-door neighbor), much to the pain of her caregivers.
One day, my mother was watching the children at my house, and my second aunt, who was taking care of my grandmother, called, and she said that my grandmother got out of bed to go to the toilet by herself in the morning, but she fell at the door and broke her head and bled a lot.
The old man was most afraid of falling, and her husband's grandfather died less than a week after a fall.
My mother and I were scared to cry when we heard the news, and we rushed to the hospital, which was still during the epidemic control period, and the hospitalized patients could only be accompanied by one family member, and the second aunt who blamed herself took the initiative to take care of my grandmother, and we were never able to set foot in that building during my grandmother's entire hospitalization.
Fortunately, my grandmother suffered a skin trauma, and a CT scan did not find intracranial hemorrhage, which was a false alarm.
A week later, my grandmother was discharged from the hospital, and although the fall did not kill her grandmother, it made her situation worse, she no longer looked for money, stopped scolding, but lay in bed and moaned in pain all day long. Even so, my grandmother still insisted on attending my daughter's 100-day banquet, it was very difficult for her to travel by herself, she was accompanied by her family throughout the whole process, and every time she was stairs, my uncle carried her upstairs and downstairs.
That day, my grandmother looked tired and had very little to eat.
It was already 11 o'clock at night when I left the table, because I thought that the children were too young, so I asked my husband to take us and the children home first, and the next day I found out that my mother and they helped my grandmother to wait for a long time on the side of the road before getting into the car, and my grandmother could not stand at all, so she could only sit on the stone pile outside the hotel and wait. Writing this, I feel like I can't breathe, and I feel like cramps and pain.
On National Day that year, we went to my aunt's house for a party. At the gate of the community, I met my grandmother, whom I hadn't seen for a long time, she was in a wheelchair at that time, and her movements had begun to become sluggish. When my grandmother saw me, she smiled hard and said, "How are you?" I'm fine, you don't have to worry about me. You take care of yourself and take care of the babies......"
It was late at the end of the meeting, and the elders of the family discussed letting Grandma stay at my aunt's house, but Grandma resisted as if she was persecuted, and she angrily repeated her desire to return to her home, and we knew that she was a little delirious again.
As a delaying tactic, my aunt wanted her to lie down and rest, but my grandmother lay on the bed and said to me with a crying voice: "Oh boy, I want to go home, do you agree?" "I was stuck in my throat, and I couldn't say anything.
I saw my grandmother's aging body curled up in bed, not knowing what to do for her, and it seemed that she had never done anything before.
When I helped my grandmother turn over, I saw the edge of the diaper peeping from her waist, although I had heard that my grandmother was starting to become incontinent, but at this moment, the white edge was still so shocking.
In the era of material scarcity when I was born, there were no diapers and no washing machine, and my grandmother used her hands to scrub how many diapers to bring me up with "a handful of and a handful of urine", but when she was old and lost the ability to take care of herself, I didn't even help her change her diapers once......
After all, the shame did not linger in my heart for long, and I had to devote myself to the raising of my two children and the trivial matters of the family.
I met my grandmother again to wean Erbao, and it was the last time I stayed at my grandmother's house.
At that time, I was so preoccupied with my daughter that I suddenly lost my breast milk supply, and once again ignored my grandmother, who was in a wheelchair and could no longer talk much.
My grandmother had fallen asleep that night I got home, and I left without saying hello. Unexpectedly, this time it turned out to be a farewell.
This is probably the truth of life, some people, as soon as you turn around, you will never see them again.
A month later, we were once again closed due to the pandemic. Despite strict management, people continue to be infected.
The long lockdown was desperate, and one night, I was suddenly awakened in my sleep by a woman's cry. Through the wall, I couldn't tell if the cry was coming from upstairs or next door, but I felt that the terrible cry was a little frightening in the middle of the night. Strangely, I woke up the next day and couldn't tell if it was real or just my dream.
My aunt and my mother had a fever one after another, and I had a bad premonition in my heart.
In the middle of the night, my mother's sudden call threw me into the abyss of terror.
"What's wrong? The child is asleep, WeChat said. "I sent a message to my mom, and the impact of words was not as strong as the sound.
"Grandma also has a fever, 39 degrees, do you know where to contact?" My heart sank sharply, and the foreboding became a reality.
On that day, my grandmother was carried downstairs by the community staff, and my aunt posted a video in the family group, and the weak grandmother kept sliding off the back seat of the car. I don't want to believe that this is my grandmother, the grandmother who greeted me with joy at the door of the delivery room 35 years ago, the grandmother who was in her sixties and could carry an empty gas tank by herself, and the grandmother who insisted on making me three meals a day despite my headache and brain fever.
It was late at night when I was admitted to the designated hospital from the "Yellow Code Hospital", and the nucleic acid results would not come out until the next morning, so I could only be trapped at home and borrow alcohol to drown my sorrows. I couldn't control my tears anymore under the influence of alcohol, and I said to myself over and over again, "No, it won't be COVID, God won't just separate me from my grandmother." ”
The short sleep was awakened by the uneasiness in my heart, and the WeChat sent by my mother said that the nucleic acid results of the three of them were all parallel bars. I heard the sound of my wishes and hopes shattering, followed by vomiting on the toilet bowl in the toilet, and I just felt sick.
The hospital gave me a three-person ward, and my mother and aunt took care of my grandmother together, and all the rest of us could only stay at home and watch the fire.
The doctor told me that my grandmother was old, had more underlying diseases, had a serious lung infection, and could die at any time, so that the family could be mentally prepared, but they would insist on working hard to treat and strive for my grandmother's recovery.
Yes, at least there are "buts", I consoled myself.
Every minute and every second of my grandmother's hospitalization, I relied on the doctor's turning tone to get through.
I asked my mom to ask the doctor if I could go to the ward with my grandmother, and the answer, of course, was no.
My connection with my grandmother was so fragile, only a mobile phone, only a mobile phone could connect me and my grandmother, but the mobile phone was the thing I feared the most at that time, because it could send bad news to me at any time.
I sent a voice message to my mother's phone and told my grandmother that the ring she was wearing before was old, and when she was ready, I would take her to buy a new one; When she was ready, I made a lot of delicious food and took it to her house for her, and took my great-grandchildren to see her.
The mobile phone receiver came from the grandmother's gossamer-like voice: "Thank you baby, you are a good doll." ”
On the third day of admission, my aunt suddenly initiated a video call in the family WeChat group.
I was a coward, I threw my phone to my husband and hid in the kitchen, the autumn wind of October howling in the pale sun, I knew it was a sound of a flute, urging my grandmother to part with me.
I cried hysterically, the tears in my eyes cut different colors by the sun. I knelt on the ground and prayed, begging Heaven to prolong my grandmother's life with my life. I knew that separation was inevitable, but at least, at least, there should be a formal goodbye. At least at such an important moment, I should have held her hand by her side.
The husband walked in and said that the grandmother's condition was not good, the blood oxygen was very low, and the doctor asked the family for their opinion on whether to be intubated once rescue was needed. The family has already discussed that my grandmother will suffer less crimes.
Learning to accept loss is a subject that we must learn.
Soon, my grandmother was sent to the intensive care unit, and the oxygen concentration had been turned on to the maximum, and the blood oxygen was still dropping. My mom and aunt were guarding the empty bed in the middle of the room, and the others and I were clutching our phones, and we all knew that my grandmother wouldn't be coming back.
Because of the shortage of beds, my mother and aunt, whose condition improved, had to leave at the urging of the hospital. The people in the hospital are flowing in and out, and my grandmother is like an island that is about to fall silent.
Every night, I always look out the window at the twilight, wondering if my grandmother, who has no relatives around me, will be scared and homesick.
The attending doctor sent my mother a WeChat message, saying that my grandmother's blood oxygen was very difficult to maintain, and they could only let her lie on the bed to maintain her basic vital signs.
And I, in despair, prayed over and over again for a miracle.
A week later, in the early morning, my grandmother left the city where she had spent half her life without any relatives, as lonely as she had left her home decades ago.
I know that she has done everything she can to stay with us.
The cremation was only four hours before death, and the family was allowed to stand at a distance for the final send-off.
I looked up at the blue sky outside the window, thinking that my grandmother was burning to ashes and turning into smoke in the city that carried our countless memories. Only then did I realize that the woman's cry I heard when I woke up from my dream that night came from myself not long after.
On the first day of the lockdown, it was my grandmother's May Seven, and I burned paper for her at the intersection of snowy roads.
The book says that those who have passed away are "all that I owe to the world has been paid, and I don't want what the world owes me." "But whether my grandmother wants it or not, it's a debt that I can't repay for the rest of my life.
My grandmother was buried in the spring of the following year, and I stood in front of the tombstone that had just been erected, and I was guided through the various rituals with my family. Junichi Watanabe said, "This series of condolence ceremonies may be to atone for the sins we have committed against the deceased. I think so.
After my grandmother left, the city that was still busy had an irreparable hole in my heart. I would pass by my grandmother's house from time to time, but there would never be a grandmother waiting for me to come home on the side of the road. (Xu Jingxi)
（摘编自微信公众号人间theLivings）