The efforts of our fathers

I was born in 1995. At that time, the purchasing power of RMB was quite strong. At that time, one cent could buy a lot of things, including two spicy sticks, a bag of soda, and a popsicle. The salary at that time was only a few hundred yuan a month. At that time, one hundred yuan was enough for the New Year, or even twenty yuan.

If you don’t listen to them, you won’t know how miserable he is. Originally he was good at studying, but he was not allowed to go to junior high school. In that era, junior high school was considered a high level of education. However, the situation at home made it useless for him because he dropped out of school and could only work at home. When there was farm work, I would do farm work. When there was no farm work, I would go up the mountain to chop firewood and pull it with a cart. But I was so young that I couldn't hold the cart at all, so I just kept stumbling back.

Does anyone feel distressed? No one feels sorry for him. The head of my household (my father) is a bachelor, and my father is adopted by him. At that time, it was just the two of them working together, but my father doesn’t feel sorry for him. For no reason, it’s just that others can’t do it. My family has been divided with him now. Home. He is still a bachelor and is worrying about which nephew he can find to support him.

My family was poor and we still lived in a thatched house at that time. When my father reached the age of marriage, no matchmaker came to his door. He knew that he couldn't count on me, so he had no choice but to go out and work on his own. I then worked in a coal kiln and a brick kiln, and after two years of saving money, I built four tile-roofed houses. Only then did someone come to me as a matchmaker, and later I married my mother.

At that time, we were still paying public taxes, so the income from farming was barely enough to survive. If we wanted to do better, we could only go out to work. So, from the time I can remember, there was only my father in my life, and my mother came back occasionally. It wasn’t until I was in the third grade that my mother stayed at home completely, and then my father went out to work.

Before my mother came back, when I was still young, I was quite happy during the Chinese New Year every year, even if I didn’t have new clothes to wear. I remember one time when there were no winter clothes, my dad took out my summer and autumn clothes and put them on, about a dozen pieces, some with long sleeves and some with short sleeves. I only remember that I couldn’t bend my arms or raise my arms after putting them on. I forgot whether I wore them to go out for fun, whether they were warm or not, and how long I had worn them. It wasn't until he got married later, that is, last year, that he talked about the Chinese New Year when he was a child. One year he had no money during the Chinese New Year, and he secretly wiped away tears by himself. One year during the Chinese New Year, I had no money, so someone happened to pay off the twenty I owed, and then bought me some clothes. One year when he had no money during the Chinese New Year, someone happened to come to collect wet mushrooms, so he sold the freshly picked mushrooms at a cheap price.

I also went to the brick kiln with my father. I was only about three years old. My memory is already blurry. I was definitely not as old as five years old. I just remember that he was working inside and I was playing on the bricks outside, climbing up and down. Later, I heard him tell me that one time someone teased me and got itchy hair on my body. I cried in discomfort, which made him so angry that I can still gnash my teeth when I think about it.

Maybe it’s because I haven’t been back for a year, maybe it’s because I haven’t been with him for a long time. Today we were making dumplings together and he told me a lot about the past. Maybe he was just reminiscing, but I could tell that it was difficult for him. Who has it easy? It's just that he's the one I care about the most.