When you celebrate your birthday, do you think of your mother?

Text/Strong Nose

Volume 2 of Yuan Baijue's "Zhanyuan Jingyu": "Liu Jizhai Hongji, Shu people, on birthdays, must fast and burn incense. Sitting upright, he said: "This is the day when my father is worried about my mother's troubles." Later, he called his birthday "the day when his mother was in trouble." The Buddhist scriptures also say: "When a biological son is ten months pregnant, he will be seriously ill. On the day of birth, the mother will be in danger and the father will be frightened."

On people's birthdays today, most people gather together to celebrate, and when the wine is drunk and the ears are hot, How many people think of the situation in those days when "mother was in danger and father was in fear"? Of course, it is definitely a great joy worthy of celebration if there is another lively life in the world, or if this lively life has passed another year safely or bumpyly. But before and after the celebration, shouldn’t we as children also look back on the difficulty of having “fathers worried about our mothers” when we came here, and remember the torment and anxiety our parents had to endure before us entering the world safely? ?

I was born on the fourth day of the second lunar month in 1970. As for the hour, my mother told me about it when she was still alive when she was describing the circumstances of giving birth to me. The most important time in life is blurred. When I asked about my father, I found that my father, who was already very informal, was already old and could not remember anything.

Last year, I went back to my hometown to build the tomb of my mother, who had been dead for more than ten years. I recalled all the hardships and difficulties my mother had gone through with my mother-in-law, who was the same generation as my mother. Only then did I learn some general information about my birth. He also calculated the more accurate time of my birth, and at the same time shed tears for my mother's suffering back then.

My mother was born on July 11, 1942 in the lunar calendar. When she was 20 years old, she married my father, who was already 23 years old. At that time, they had all exceeded the age of marriage that is customary in the countryside, "when men are older and women are older," the marriage age was actually due to their family background: their once-all-powerful grandparents had passed away for more than a year, their great-grandfather was already an octogenarian, and several children Both uncles are underage, and the family is still burdened with the "burden" and "notoriety" given by history. All the burdens almost crush the father in his weak years. Fortunately, my grandmother, who understood justice well, remembered the support my grandfather had given her family when he was her brother-in-law, and decided to betroth my mother to my father, so that "this family, which was about to decline, could continue."

I feel sorry for my mother, who stepped into this desolate and miserable family and took on the mission entrusted to her by her predecessors. Whether it was a reluctant atonement or a willingness to look back, she has since stepped into the world of suffering. In the dark night, until I left this world, I never really enjoyed the sweetness of life again.

My great-grandfather passed away about a year after my eldest brother was born. The mother has now lost the elder she can rely on in the family. She has to fully bear the food, clothing and household expenses of the whole family. At the same time, she has to go to the fields with her father to participate in large-scale collective production labor, and she has to work hard to break her ribs. Food to support a family's small intestines and stomachs.

Four years later, the second brother was born, and the family's burden became increasingly heavy. The second uncle was a decent man, but he was sick and could not get married; the third uncle struggled to make a living, and even went to the frontier to try to make a living, and later learned art and made a career; the first uncle was honest by nature, dull and dull, and it was difficult to protect himself. , life at home is really getting harder day by day!

As the eldest son of the family, my father had to support his brothers and raise his young son who was waiting for food. Although he was blessed by his grandfather to learn calligraphy and study when he was young, he later suffered from his grandfather's "class status" Compared with the political blows I bear, the sorrow in my heart is much greater. Perhaps the heavy pressure of life forced my father's heart to gradually become numb. Probably in my father's humble heart, he no longer expected to live a happy life. As long as the whole family could survive, it would be a blessing. Seeing that the mother who was about to give birth was still busy, the sad father felt a glimmer of hope in his heart: he hoped that after giving birth to two sons, having another daughter would be a very good situation - the girl was diligent and the Ba family didn't say anything. , certainly not like boys who eat like wolves, and when they grow up and get married, according to rural customs, they may receive a large betrothal gift.

In northern Sichuan at the beginning of February of the lunar calendar, it is already the season when the grass is growing and the orioles are flying and the rapeseed flowers are blooming everywhere. It is suddenly warm and then cold. For farmers in the countryside, the most attractive thing is naturally the warm sun. The scorching heat radiated by nature can make people not suffer from the cold, but in the green and yellow seasons, only planting and no harvest, the days of hunger are also difficult to endure.

The mother was counting the days before giving birth, busy with housework, arranging the family’s meals during the confinement period, and quickly preparing everything that could be prepared.

As the evening approached, my mother, who had been working hard all day, struggled to carry a basket of the only remaining red potatoes in the family, and led her three-year-old second brother to the field one mile away from home. Go wash (wash) in the Tibetan pit (a deep pit for water storage, usually used for washing).

Because it is used by everyone, the edges of the pit are muddy and slippery. The mother, who had a huge belly, asked the young second brother to stand on the field stem from a distance, and she carried the bamboo basket containing red potato on her back and moved to the edge of the hiding pit with difficulty. Mother carefully put the bamboo basket down from her shoulder, then slowly moved it to the puddle, and laboriously pounded it with a wooden pestle. The red potato turned its body lazily, and under the buoyancy of the water and the impact of the wooden pestle, it took two or three times longer than usual to slowly be pounded clean.

Although there was less mud, there was more water. Especially after going through strenuous movements, the mother felt even more tired when she returned carrying the sweet potatoes. The mother, who was a little powerless, had to use her three-year-old brother as a crutch, dragging his heavy body step by step, and only returned home when it was completely dark.

Putting down a basket of washed red sweet potatoes, my mother immediately cooked dinner for the whole family. While the father and the others were eating after returning from work in the fields, the mother packed up a large pot of ingredients and began to eat while sitting next to the earthen stove and burning firewood to cook pig food.

It may be that the body has been affected by heavy work, or the mother's health is not good in the first place. Before the pot of pig food is cooked, the mother's stomach hurts. The mother, who really couldn't hold on any longer, gave her father a few instructions and then lay down on the bed.

It was probably near midnight, after a period of tossing and sweating profusely in pain, my mother finally gave birth to me with the help of her busy father, relying on her own experience of giving birth to two children.

Seeing another boy begging for food, my father was really angry. In addition, there was nothing to eat at home. My father heated up the leftover rice that my mother had eaten in the evening and served it to her. Due to the postpartum weakness and the fatigue of the past few days, my mother had no taste for the half-bowl of leftover rice cooked with red sweet potato leaves and red sweet potato leaves, so she had no choice but to caress the infant me and sigh for a while, silently.

At dawn the next day, my father came over to see me and found that I looked depressed and my crying was intermittent and hoarse. In the end, I just kept my eyes wide open, neither eating nor drinking, and huddled up in discomfort. My mother was frightened. She was extremely afraid that I would die young. She thought it was because she had no milk, so she urged my father to find someone to borrow some glutinous rice grains to stimulate lactation.

The father, who had no grain of rice in his family, really had no other choice but to go out and seek help from his neighbors.

The second mother-in-law’s son was just one month old, and his father thought about going to their house to borrow it. Maybe there was some leftover glutinous rice grains from the second mother-in-law’s confinement period. At that time, the rare glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice flour glutinous rice flour glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice flour glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice flour glutinous rice glutinous rice flour glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice glutinous rice flour glutinous rice flour paste glutinous rice flour glutinous rice flour glutinous rice flour glutinous rice flour incense market was sold at home and abroad. The compassionate second wife asked the honest second husband to serve a large bowl of red sweet potato glutinous rice to my father. My father felt like he had found a treasure and brought it back happily and divided it into several days for my mother to eat.

But I was always sluggish because of my weakness. The milk that my mother force-fed into my mouth either vomited or was pulled out as soon as I swallowed it. In the end, no matter how hard my mother fed me, I also couldn’t. No swallowing, just crying sadly sometimes. For two days in a row, he looked like he was dying. Later, he fell asleep and never woke up again.

My mother felt a little happy when I cried, because being able to cry meant that there was still a little hope of survival; but when I became silent and motionless, my mother burst into tears in despair!

Seeing that I seemed to be "dead", my family really could no longer spend a few cents to seek medical treatment. My father, who had no hope at all, was even more disappointed: I buried him. Bar! Father said to Mother.

How could my mother be so willing? She cried bitterly and warmed me with her body. She desperately devoured the borrowed red potato glutinous rice grains that were so sour that tears came to her eyes, hoping to give me enough milk to survive in this sad world.

Seeing my mother’s “futile struggle,” my father thought that my arrival was adding endless troubles to the already precarious family, so he resolutely snatched me from my mother’s arms and pretended that The dung baskets used to pick up dung in the countryside were prepared to be buried in mass graves at night when the black people were quiet.

A suffering family has no time to save itself, and the hope of survival is very slim. If everything is ruined for a newly born baby with an uncertain future, the whole family may fall into the trap. The abyss of eternal destruction! A seemingly ruthless father, especially the eldest son of a family, not only has to think about his own children and grandchildren, but also cares about the entire family at all times. If you rashly take it lightly for a piece of meat that fell off your body, it will be an unforgivable crime to implicate or even destroy the entire family! A weak mother, even if she is seriously ill during her ten-month pregnancy, as long as the fetus is not stillborn, the birth of the baby will be like her own rebirth. Even if the death door is closed, she will still fight for the chance for her young son to survive in this world!

The wailing mother, watching the flesh and blood of her just a few days old being buried in the pile of rocks, feels heartache like a dull knife cutting the flesh and a stick hitting the heart! If possible, the mother is willing to use everything she has in exchange for her son's life...

Perhaps it was the mother's tears that moved the king of hell who asked for his life, or maybe the evil virtue accumulated in the previous life was exchanged for the kindness in this life. Fate, before dark, my grandma came to my house in time after hearing the news.

After looking at the little me who was wrapped in tattered clothes and placed in a manure basket, my grandmother, who knew all about my family’s poverty, grabbed my father and discussed it gently: I think this baby has beautiful features. , The nose is straight and the eyes are big. I'm afraid God can't bear to kill him, right? If we don't let him go for a few more days, his fate will depend on whether he lives or dies!

Even though his father was so poor that he had nothing to lose, he was not hard-hearted in the face of his own flesh and blood, so he had no choice but to agree with his grandmother.

But I was still recognized as hopeless, but my dead baby was buried later and hung on the mulberry tree in front of my house.

The spring rain in February drizzled over me, who was wrapped in a thin swaddling clothes made of tattered clothes. The rainwater accumulated in the broad mulberry leaves on the thick mulberry tree trunks flowed into my young body drop by drop. In my little mouth, I seemed to have absorbed a strange spiritual energy between the cold world and the earth. After three days and three nights of silent and drowsy sleep, I actually started crying loudly!

My mother, who had been leaning against the door every day, took me back home in surprise, like a lost treasure, like a broken pearl. Her hot tears washed my cold body, twenty-eight My mother, who was 20 years old, hugged me day and night, never wanting to let go...

I suffered this disaster since I was born. Although I am not sickly, I am still weak. My mother saw that I was so weak and thin, and she cared for me in every way. Later, when the fourth and fifth brothers were born, my mother still loved and cherished me as always. As long as I can remember, I have known my mother's care for me: even a few grains of rice, a piece of red sweet potato or even a strand of vegetable leaves in her bowl would be quietly put into my bowl; counting the nine cold days, My mother was shivering from the cold, so she had to give me one of the few clothes she had on her body, and she only wore a thin coat for the winter. Later, when I grew up and went out, my mother always sent me letters or called me through my father. He repeatedly told me to eat well, wear warm clothes, and take good care of my body. Even after I got married, my mother never tired of asking my lover to take good care of me...

My mother died of illness in 2006 at the age of sixty-four. Two months before my mother passed away, I stayed with her in the hospital room. My mother, who was in a coma at any time, once she woke up, held my hand and murmured her thanks to me and us - the sons she had given birth to. She felt like "the crows feed back." Happiness...

In the life journey I have gone through, my mother has been with me for thirty-six years. After the age of thirty-six, I no longer have a mother’s baby!

Maybe, after celebrating this birthday, I have completed half of my life, or three-fifths, or even more, but I will always remember my beloved mother on my birthday!