Author: Chang Yang
Among the million-strong army that built the Xiangyu Railway that year, there was a special team, the "Three-Line Cadet Company"! Pictured: Expedition
On July 22, 2000, I sent my children to Singapore to participate in the Asia-Pacific Youth Science and Technology Expo Festival.
When we arrived at the meeting point, more than a dozen parents and their children were already seated in the luxurious conference room. It goes without saying that the mood of the people present is extremely excited, the children are full of ambition for the opportunity to be embarrassed, and the parents are extremely proud of the children who are competing. Fashionable outfits compete for color, and the clothes of famous brands are colorful......
When I saw that the children who were about to leave were sixteen or seventeen years old, I couldn't help but feel sad with excitement.
Because I think of the children who went to the third line back then, and I think of the mother who sent the children.
They are all sixteen or seventeen years old, and they are all mother and son parting, but there is a world of difference between the past and the present!
On March 11, 1971, I was going to the countryside to go home for a while, just in time for my younger brother to go to the third line. His mother said, let's see him off together.
The younger brother is a junior high school graduate of Xi'an No. 5 Middle School, and his starting place is in the playground of this school. When we arrived, it was already packed with people and drums. The cadets carried simple clothes and netted pockets, which were no longer visible today, and were stuffed with washbasins, rice bowls, and scrubbing. Everyone is surrounded by their families to say their final goodbyes.
When the younger brother saw us, he hurried through the crowd, his face full of the sacredness and joy that he was about to take on the heavy responsibility. I was in my early twenties, and I had been out and about for many years, just fulfilling my brother's obligations, and I was in a very calm mood. The mother on the side looked extremely heavy, her body trembled, her eyes were moist, and she seemed to have a thousand words and couldn't spit out a single word.
I looked around and saw that all the mothers had the same expressions: tears in their eyes, but not a drop of them came out. They know that their children are on the right path, far away from home, and should not be sad and sad, even if there are all kinds of pain, they should also keep it in their hearts. It wasn't until the children got into the car and galloped off with the wheels that their tears poured out like a flood peak bursting the embankment.
Acquaintances hugged each other and cried bitterly, squatting on the ground alone and crying, and several elderly people fainted with excessive sadness, causing a more intense cry.
My mother was a very attentive person, and I have the impression that she had barely cried silently, even when she sent me and my other brother to the countryside, she was silently sobbing, and at the moment she did not care about anything, and lay on a tree pole and let out a heart-rending cry.
I almost had my heart and soul broken. It was at this moment that I understood the hearts of my mother and all the mothers of the cadets.
They are extremely ambivalent about their children going to the third line. They know that this is the need of the motherland and the future of their children, and they fully support and obey absolutely, but they are reluctant to let their children go to difficult places. The child is too young and has always relied on his parents at home, how can he live independently in the future? How can it adapt to the harsh environment? Later, the child had a firm mind and secretly moved his household registration away, and he became a mother.
As soon as I parted, my mother's heart couldn't stand it, it was much more difficult and dangerous than the countryside, and today's farewell may be goodbye. How can you bear to give up the flesh that falls from your body? Even so, in front of the children, they still endure the pain, which is afraid of the worry of the children who travel far away!
Since the trainees set off in batches, three days later, my mother saw off my other younger brother. I found my mother's heart even heavier, because this was the last child she had sent away!
One of our six brothers died early because of the hardships of life, which left an incurable wound on my mother's soul. One went to school in other places, and the other went to the countryside; The day before yesterday, I went to the third line, and today is to say goodbye to the last child, which is tantamount to digging up the little spiritual wealth left by the mother! She couldn't accept it, and she couldn't face the harsh reality.
After repeated struggles, she came to the starting point of the cadets in a trance. The mother's heart was too kind, she didn't want the child to feel lonely in the atmosphere of farewell, but she didn't dare to face the scene of the broken intestines, so I asked my brother to give orders, and I looked painfully from a distance.
The younger brother, who was pedaling into the car, saw his mother in the distance, and the excited face that was impulsed by the new life suddenly lowered, and then two lines of tears rolled out. This move infected the whole car, the children all cried, and the mothers under the car saw this, the grief of the pressure could no longer be controlled, and the big playground became a sea of crying.
Despite being far away, my mother was still in the bustling crowd, and she could see the subtle changes in my brother's expression, she was like a thousand arrows piercing her heart, but she was afraid of affecting the child's mood, so she turned her back to wipe her tears on the ground.
The car drove off, and the mother turned around like an electric shock and chased after the car. A group of mothers chasing cars gather in front of and behind, left and right. They faltered and moved slowly, but the light in their eyes was so sincere and attached. The children bent over and waved in the car. It wasn't until the car disappeared without a trace that the mothers stopped there, reluctant to leave for a long time......
As if cramped, the mother sat down on the steps by the side of the road, bowing her head and saying nothing. I understand her. After the impact of two partings, my heart was almost broken, and after sitting with my mother for a while, I walked home with my mother......
From then on, my mother began to miss her for a long time.
Other mothers are worried about one child, but she is worried about two hearts. I often recite the child's name and talk about the child's past. Memories are a kind of enjoyment, but also become the mother's only spiritual sustenance, but soon fell into deep sorrow, people lost a few laps, swollen eyes are difficult to disappear, specially hung out of the map of Shaanxi Ankang part due to long-term melting, grinding out holes, Ankang weather forecast, news reports are the mother's daily must listen to the content.
A few days after my brother left, my mother wrote a letter. It is said that the mother's education level is okay, but the letter to the distant child is particularly difficult to write, both longing and not sad, both to tell the mother's mood but not to do what she wants, the tone needs to be high-spirited, and the words must be exquisite, which is precisely the most difficult for the mother at this time.
She was busy with pen and ink almost all day, writing and tearing, tearing and rewriting. At that time, the family housing was too tight to have a desk, so my mother sat on a small stool and lay on the edge of the bed, occasionally beating her back and back with her fists, which were exhausted from giving birth to six children.
After the letter was sent, the mother waited anxiously for a reply. It's a pity that the mail was backward at that time, and it took half a month to go back and forth at the earliest. During this period, my mother seemed to be seriously ill, her emotions were anxious, she had no appetite for eating, and she went to the communication room every day to inquire.
Twenty days later, the two children's letters finally arrived, but a closer look only added to the mother's worries. The two of them seemed to have discussed, both of them were in the same revolutionary language, the same radical rhetoric, and the sentence "If you want to struggle, there will be sacrifices", especially frightened the mother.
In fact, this is a red family letter from the two younger brothers and all the students to comfort their mother. At that time, the cadet company advocated this, and the simple cadet soldiers must use the most revolutionary words and the highest tone, and "if you want to struggle, there will be sacrifices" has almost become a common cliché. As everyone knows, it not only did not comfort the mother, but also caused the mother to fall into deeper anxiety.
My mother was already an anxious child, but now she is getting more and more restless. The word "sacrifice" was like a sword hanging over her head, prompting her to understand the situation of her two children as soon as possible. She repeatedly asked my father to inquire about the channels of the call there. My father was not good at socializing, so he was tough at the moment and took a lot of trouble to find the Xi'an office of the railway soldiers.
The mother came there as if she had completed a sacred mission, and she anxiously told a railroad soldier her wish. The soldier was very enthusiastic, and after explaining the procedure for the call, he gave the microphone to my mother. My mother first went to the headquarters of the 11th Division of the Railway Corps, and then the division headquarters was transferred to the regiment headquarters, and finally to the company where my little brother was.
When the company commander heard that he was a parent of a student soldier, he was very cooperative in talking about my little brother's performance and situation, but the nervous mother did not believe that the child was safe and sound as the company commander said, and insisted on asking her child to answer the phone.
After a while, the voice of the little brother came from the microphone, but the mother didn't believe that it was her own child, so she asked the little brother to say the name of the whole family, and after getting an accurate answer, the mother's high heart was put down. After repeating this method with the other child, the mother returned home calmly.
It may be that the two younger brothers understood their mother's feelings, and there were no more radical words in the letter to their mother, mostly relieved and good news, but also revealed the difficulties of life, especially the word "hunger" appeared the most. It pulled the mother, who had just calmed down, into her worries again.
My mother has tasted hunger, and has used hard work and tenacity to protect her six children through the "three years of natural disasters".
She hurriedly ran to the grain station, took out 10 catties of food stamps from her monthly ration of 27 catties, and immediately sent 5 catties to each of her two children. At night, she still can't sleep well, thinking about how to use food stamps in the mountains, what if there are no restaurants and shops?
The next day, she bought back 10 catties of noodles, and asked someone to buy a catty of peanuts, which were difficult to buy at that time, and began to make fried noodles solemnly.
The mother carefully peeled and crushed the peanuts, put them together with the noodles, and put them in the pot. The pot at home can only fry two catties at a time, and it must be stirred slowly with a simmer, and it takes two whole days to fry ten catties, and the mother is tired and her arms are numb and her mouth is dry. But smelling the fragrant fried noodles and thinking about the sweet taste of my son eating fried noodles, all the tiredness disappeared.
For more than two years, my mother persistently sent her two children fried noodles, pickles, canned food, pastries and everything else she could buy, while she herself only left more than 10 catties of grain and more than 10 yuan a month to survive......
Thank you mother for her endless care and care
Mother is great and loves the world
Mother's love is eternal, and gratitude is endless
American production: Liang Baoping
Liang Baoping Profile: Male, college education, horse, temperament, engaged in the construction of the Xiangyu Railway for three years, 42 years of work as a public servant of the people. Hobbies: book collection, reading, writing, travel, photography, traditional Chinese medicine research, Tai Chi soft ball fitness. Personality: easy-going, casual, casual. Conduct: To live for the people I love and those who love me and those who need me. Motto: The busier the work, the better, the simpler the life, the better, and the richer the spirit, the better.
Editor: Fang Yingxin "White Waves"