Miss my father

Wan Li came to the border with great pride.

A cavity of blood spilled on Tianshan Mountain.

The grave grass is green, the grave grass is yellow,

Half loyal and half homesick.

This is a so-called poem written to my father three years ago. He has been away from this world for thirteen years, buried at the foot of Tianshan Mountain, and looked at my hometown where he lived for more than forty years day and night.

Some people say, "those beautiful lives that passed away eventually became stars in the sky." How can the nether world be separated forever? We are still spinning in the same universe. Yes, what is the essential difference between life and death?

My father was born in an ordinary family in the rural area of northern Jiangsu. There are brothers and sisters in the world. My grandmother died early, and my grandfather was still working in a factory in his eighties. He lives a very simple life by himself.

Subei Plain is densely populated, with dense river networks, rich products and simple folk customs. Shortly after his father got married, he responded to the call of the country and took his mother to the west. After more than a month of tossing and turning, I finally settled down in the Ili Valley in the embrace of Tianshan Mountain.

It was an era when disasters spread and ideals were held high! Although the border of the western regions is a wild land, the unique Jiangnan is still rich in water and grass, with cattle and sheep all over the mountain.

Father, when they arrived in Yili, it was already May, the river was rolling and wild flowers were everywhere. Singing the song "Jiangnan is everywhere beyond the Great Wall", digging holes, cutting down red willows, cutting mountains and logging, and reclaiming land ... Groups of young people from all corners of the country have camped in the desert wasteland north and south of Tianshan Mountain for nearly half a century.

Father went to high school and wrote a good hand. Learned to cut hair. He can play erhu, flute and other musical instruments, which often adds atmosphere for us to play a jinghu on holidays. Build your own house and make your own furniture. Do things quickly, walk like the wind, and always appear capable and confident. I like to discuss state affairs and stare at the map for a long time. Good at alcohol and tobacco, love to eat meat, but the body is always tough and straight. My father is very sociable and especially likes to recognize fellow villagers. The comrades who went to Xinjiang with them still maintain family-like contact. My father is a man of real temperament. I have seen him cry in front of everyone many times, lamenting the impermanence of the world, his bad fate and the separation of relatives and friends. He missed his hometown in northern Jiangsu all his life, and returned to his hometown again and again, but he never went anywhere else.

A generation has a generation's way of life, but some things have been handed down from generation to generation, that is, "family style."

Father must get up early every day, sweep the yard and make a fire to cook. What my father said to me the most was: "When you are away from home and find a good job, you must unite with others, write well and wear neat clothes." I am ashamed to say that I have been idle for half my life, with no achievements and no stable job. I just want to write well, dress neatly and tell my father that he is in heaven.

When my father was young, he worked in logistics management and dealt with all kinds of people. Kazakh herders are also frequent visitors to my family, and my father communicates with herders in Kazakh from time to time. I have a mysterious and intimate feeling for Kazakh people since I was a child.

In the late 1970s, my father moved to a ranch far away from home and took me there every holiday.

Gongnaisi grassland is like a green sea! Riding a horse, swimming, catching rabbits, picking mushrooms ... In retrospect, it was a fairyland like a fairy tale!

Most of the farms are young people, and we often listen to them play the piano, sing songs, say idioms and tell jokes. The happiness of collective life makes me extremely fresh and happy. That's probably when my musical enlightenment began. My father can sing the melody directly from the music. I really envy him. Those songs that Li Guyi and Zhu Fengbo sang in those years were all sung by my father.

I remember going back to my hometown in northern Jiangsu with my parents in the spring of 1980. Enthusiasts in the pasture prepared a lot of food for us. Sitting in a small carriage across the green Gongnaisi grassland, I got on the regular road leading to Yining.

Think of the song "Blue Carriage" written by Wang before his death. "Blue carriage, running on the leaves of Central Asia and West Asia ..." That was the first time I took a carriage to the vast and wonderful world outside.

Along the way, my father told me the place names and scenic spots I wanted to pass. When driving through Sailimu Lake, I felt like I was melting into the blue Wang Yang because the road was close to the lake. It's even more terrible to be excited! The train stayed in Wuwei for a long time, and refugees in rags poured in. Ah, there is such a famine in my motherland! I distributed the food I brought to these two dirty hands, feeling heavy and depressed. When the train crossed the Yangtze River Bridge, we stood up early, and the long journey of four days and three nights was coming to an end. How the misty Yangtze River "only looks at the water and sky of the Yangtze River" strongly shocks the soul of a teenager.

At that time, my father, who was in his early forties, rode his bike all day and took us everywhere to visit relatives and friends. On the last return trip, a group of people sent us to Shanghai. The first time I sailed on the Yangtze River on a luxury passenger ship, I was so excited that I jumped up and down on the deck like a seagull, even at the bottom of the ship, and the Yellow River rushed in front of me.

I went to Shanghai Xijiao Park and got separated from my family. I took my time and touched my relatives' home from memory. Several distinctive landmarks and road names, as well as my good sense of direction, make my ten-year-old child swim like a fish in Wang Yang. Desperate parents returned to their relatives' home and found me sleeping soundly. Ha ha! Mother is still sighing when she mentions this matter now! That's when my wandering and freedom-loving nature began to emerge. It must have been influenced by my father.

After the implementation of the "household contract responsibility system", my father returned to his hometown to farm, and he led his family to build a new house and set up a "family farm". The first one planted rice in his hometown and some fresh melons and fruits in the mainland. But hard work doesn't necessarily make you rich. Life is like this, there is no absolute fairness.

After graduating from high school, I fell in love with guitar instead of continuing my studies. Playing the piano and singing with my piano friends all day. Once, I was at home, with the door closed, playing and singing to the tape recorder. It happened that my father came back and I didn't hear his voice. This angered my father, who scolded me loudly and said that playing the piano and singing would never support him. At that time, his words were a little extreme. My father and I haven't spoken for many years. In the later years, I wandered around and went to the road of music until now. Later, although my father's tone softened, the gap between us always existed.

In that long wandering years, I occasionally wrote and telephoned my father, asking about work and starting a family, which was always difficult to answer and perfunctory. I was worried about my future until my father died a few months ago.

Caught in the tide of the times, our Fusang was washed to the other side. Success and failure are only secular divisions, and there is no distinction in the waves. I only hope that I can walk into the eternity of life at the same pace in my lifetime.

Father left, with deep attachment to relatives and friends, with infinite nostalgia for the world.

In many cases, there is no difference between life and death This is why I am not sad about death and unhappy about life.

Spring breeze Wan Li drunk Tianshan Mountain,

Worrying about rain, Tomb-Sweeping Day is a sage.

Look at the deep clouds and grass in the secluded place,

I remember my old friend in the sky.

This is also a self-created poem three years ago. On Father's Day, I wrote this article in memory of my father.