Cousin, aunt, third aunt, grandpa and grandpa, all the awakening memories...
1. Cousin Yunyun
One morning before the New Year , my daughter said before going out: "I'm not coming for lunch today, I'm going to Ren Tianzeng's house."
"Why are you going to their house again?" I asked in surprise, because I had been there once before and had eaten at their house. It’s time for a meal.
“At our New Year’s Day party tonight, the class teacher gave each group 40 yuan to buy food for the party. I can’t carry it by myself, so I have to ask Ren Tianzeng to go get it with me.” He opened the door and left.
My daughter is the team leader, and Ren Tianzeng is one of her team members. She has the right to ask the only boy in the team to follow her as a porter. Ren Tianzeng is the youngest son of my cousin Yunyun. My cousin took her to my home once and had a meal cooked by me. He is a tall, slender and cute little boy. He is one year older than my daughter. He is my daughter's cousin. His academic performance is a little behind my daughter's. He seems to have no talent in singing, painting, etc., so he has a certain admiration for his cousin. At the beginning of the school year, when my daughter first became the team leader and the standing monitor, she was very active. She once complained to me that Ren Tianzeng was very naughty and that sometimes she couldn't control her. Later, my daughter became less enthusiastic as a class leader. It has weakened, and my words show a sense of maturity that is growing day by day. I am very good at handling interpersonal relationships. I have a good relationship with other students in the class. I am also particularly concerned about some students from poor families. One day, I said that the two of them were several Girls living on campus who had not bathed in months were brought home to bathe.
In order to be in charge of a group's New Year's Day party, my daughter didn't come for lunch. After class, I walked out of school and suddenly decided to buy some gifts and go to my cousin Yunyun's house. Reciprocity, she had been to my house once. I should pay a return visit to her home. I have already been there once, but she was not there that time. I picked up the heavy bag of fruit and emptied it, then took it back home and ate it myself. This time I took the opportunity to buy a bag of bananas, oranges and other fruits at the fruit stall near the school gate, and once again walked into the dirt yard built next to the garbage ditch. It was an irregular, shabby yard built by a family named Zhang on an open space beside the smelly ditch outside their courtyard house. There were two low adobe houses built on the east side, and there was a haphazard pile of debris on the west side. In the dilapidated shed, a pair of khaki stray dog ??mother and son welcomed me with barking barks. The mother dog’s unkempt and slovenly appearance was very suitable for its status. The puppies had soft and bright fur and were jumping around happily. They looked cute and dignified. They were given to me by my cousin. When I went out, I said that she had taken in the mother and son, so the puppy was very affectionate to her. The mother and son guarded the shabby yard faithfully, barking a few times as if to express their gratitude when strangers came in, but they did not Not serious enough to bite you.
There was only one room with a chimney sticking out and gray smoke coming out. I lifted up the thick curtain made of rags and pushed open a wooden door with mottled paint. I asked, "Are you there?" What are you busy with?" I stepped into the cold darkness. When my eyes adjusted to the huge contrast in light between the inside and outside and could see clearly, I was surprised to find that my cousin rented a low and messy room. In a dark shabby house, a wooden bed was placed on a large ocher-red kang, and the quilts of the cousin and her son were spread on it. There was a square iron stove on the dirt floor, and an old rectangular iron stove was placed between the stove and the edge of the kang. The coffee table is covered with dishes, half-plastic mesh baskets of potato strips cut into strips to be fried, pickled sauerkraut, soaked vermicelli, and blanched bean sprouts. Because my daughter has to go home for dinner, my cousin is very early. She prepared a lot of vegetables and started frying. She asked me to sit on a small square stool behind the stove. I chatted with her and watched her cooking. She said that one of the two children did not eat soy sauce and the other did not eat lard, so she When frying each dish, I scoop out a few spoons of clear oil from a large-diameter pot and pour it into a small iron pot on the stove. I stir-fry a few times with a shovel, and then take a few conventional seasonings from a plastic seasoning box and sprinkle them in. , then scoop out a small spoonful of spicy oil from a small-diameter jar and add it to the dish. Then pour some water, cover the pot and simmer for a while, then put it on a plate. There is a rice cooker on a wooden box next to the bed. It was steaming, and rice was steaming inside.
When we chatted about my cousin cooking the last dish - potato sticks, I saw it was almost twelve o'clock and left quickly. My cousin wanted to keep me for dinner, so I couldn't bear to cause any more trouble to her in this crowded hut. , the three of them plus my daughter are enough to keep us from turning around. Before leaving, my cousin insisted on packing me some cereals she brought from her home in the countryside: buckwheat noodles, bean noodles, and several bowls of lentils. I couldn’t push them away. She said she had brought a lot, and she I couldn’t finish the food, so I gave it away to several relatives. If I didn’t send it away to the countryside during the winter vacation, it would have to be left to the mice. I could only carry it back with a heavy load. I probably won’t be able to eat it for a year and a half. over.
Thinking back to where Yunyun lived, I lamented the difference in people’s destinies. There are three siblings in the Yunyun family. Yunyun is the eldest. They all studied in the school where I taught. That was when I first stood on the podium. Yunyun, her younger siblings and another uncle’s family My cousin, my elder brother’s son, and my third sister’s younger brother all went to junior high school at the school where I taught. Since I was admitted to a school that can provide public meals, our family attaches great importance to children’s education. Yunyun My uncle and aunt went through a lot of hardships and insisted on raising all three children out of high school. After repeated tutoring, the second and third children were admitted to college and got a good job. Now they all live in a building in the county town. In the days of well-off life, Yunyun, another cousin, my third sister, and my brother's nephew all became farmers and married off one after another, and they are all in their forties now. They are middle-aged, and their children are either in college or in high school or junior high school, and some are already working. Yunyun's family background is not very bad. Her father-in-law is a retired teacher. Her husband has been working as a private teacher but is not lucky enough and has not been able to become a regular teacher. In order to provide for her two high school sons to go to school, Yunyun left her household chores to her parents-in-law and husband, and rented a dark, dilapidated house in the city, where she cooked meals for her two sons. They were a very nice family, but her life in the city seemed much more difficult.
Yunyun is three years younger than me. Although she is only three years younger than me, because I went to school early, we never studied in the same school, and we never played together when we were young, until I became a junior high school teacher. At that time, she was still a junior high school student. Later, when I was transferred to the city to teach, Yunyun graduated from high school and stopped going to school. After being introduced by her relatives, she worked as a pig-bristle brush worker in an agricultural and sideline processing factory in the county for several years. We had several contacts at that time. Later, when the factory closed down, she got a serious illness when she returned home and almost died. It was not until she was almost thirty that she found a partner to get married. Within two years, she gave birth to two sons. , there has been no contact between us in the past twenty years. Two or three years ago, their aunt was seriously ill. I visited her several times. Later, she passed away and went to the funeral. I bumped into this cousin, but we didn’t exchange a few words. , until this year, when she rented a house in the city for her children to go to school, her youngest son and her daughter were assigned to a class and a study group. Under the guidance of the two children, we cousins ??moved around more.
2. Aunt Diwa
That day, my cousin Yunyun suddenly broke the news while chatting with me: "Aunt Diwa is dead, do you know, sister?"
"Ah?! When, I don't know at all, I only know that she has been sick these years, it seems to be liver disease. I remember hearing people in the village say that all the family members had hepatitis. It has been many years. I heard the news everywhere, when did he die?" I asked in surprise.
"I also heard about it, not long ago. I can't tell the details. I heard that my uncle carried him to death." Yunyun said.
"Why did you carry it to death?" I asked next.
"Oh, by the way, it was the tenth month of the lunar calendar. Aunt Diwa said she was going to do some work in another house, so she asked her uncle to carry her to that house, and her uncle carried her on his back. I walked into another room and when I went in to put my aunt down, I found that she had no breath and died like that. Do you think it was easy? It was already cold in October in the lunar calendar. Maybe it was blocked by phlegm or something. I just put a cushion on my uncle's back, and he didn't come up again..." Yunyun explained a lot.
There was a time when I became familiar with this aunt’s family whom I had never known before, because I was also married to the son of a family in that village and had been that family’s boss for more than 20 years. My daughter-in-law also went to the village from time to time, but our marriage did not last forever because I studied a little and always wanted to fight for my rights as a human being instead of being a tame slave. When I was still the daughter-in-law of that family, I met Aunt Diwa several times. At that time, she was still healthy, a virtuous and simple peasant woman. A simple peasant meal would be different from what she cooked in other families. She was very sexy. With all the fragrance, Aunt Diwa and her sisters can be called the ladies of the countryside.
Time passed by unexpectedly for many years. I heard my father and mother occasionally talking about the situation of some relatives. I knew that Aunt Diwa was seriously ill, but I didn’t expect that she would suddenly die. After passing away and walking in front of her old mother, how unbearable it is for our only remaining grandmother!
Third and third aunts
"Mom, who is that old woman today?" my daughter asked me after she got up from her nap.
"Your third wife, your Aunt Haixia's mother, I told you, how come you forgot?" I said.
"How old is she?" the daughter asked again.
"You are one year younger than me, and your Aunt Haixia is the same age as your brother. She is already the mother of two children, and your brother has nothing." I said.
"Huh? I look like your mother." The daughter said.
"How is that possible? Does your mistress look that old? Does your mother look that young?" I criticized my daughter, feeling secretly happy.
"Really, compared to her, you are too young, she really looks like your mother!" the daughter insisted.
"That's because you don't know how to see. You are a country boy. He is weathered and has dark skin. He is dressed in an old-fashioned way and looks old." I said. "Hey, talking about it, I remembered a joke I made before. That time I was walking with your Aunt Xie, and Xiao Ding from our school bumped into me. She didn't recognize your Aunt Xie, so she asked me if this was your old man. I I was very embarrassed and quickly explained, no, this is Teacher Xie from No. 1 Middle School. Xiao Ding was so embarrassed that he didn’t know what to say. He even expressed his apologies to Aunt Xie several times when he saw me in the future. ""You said, Is your Aunt Xie that old?" I then asked my daughter.
"Well, it's really old." I felt secretly proud for a while.
Oh, how old people want others to say they are young! After all, he is still over fifty years old, how can he be young. Today is the first time that the third aunt has visited my house. She is accompanied by her daughter, my little cousin Haixia. Haixia is still holding her two and a half year old daughter, and her eldest daughter is almost seven years old. Now, I am in the first grade of elementary school. Haixia has been working outside for seven or eight years since she got married. I have rarely seen her, but this year I visited her frequently. First, she asked me for help. In order to support her children in studying in the city, she bought a small second-floor house and needed a loan. She asked me to be her guarantor. After the matter was completed, she came to thank me twice more. This time she brought her mother, my third aunt, to thank me again for a loan of 50,000 yuan. It solved her urgent need. If it weren't for me, no relative would be able to help her, so she remembered my kindness and came frequently to express her gratitude. Last time, Haixia brought a piece of the pig she had killed recently. Pork belly and some pork ribs came. This time, the third aunt cut two pieces of lean meat weighing three to four kilograms from her New Year pig. Haixia also bought a large handful of bananas and brought them to thank me.
The third aunt also dressed up specially today. She was dressed quite new. She wore a pink scarf with plastic beads around her neck. It was very conspicuous, but her long nails were full of teeth. Black dirt, when eating, I rolled up a thick stack of soft pancakes I had just made and handed them to her hand diligently without letting her hand touch my plate. The dishes were served in one bowl per person. It’s time to eat. Alas, I’m not a mysophobic person, but the third aunt is really not particular about personal hygiene, so I can’t help it.
After dinner, we talked about a lot of family matters, asked about the situation of some familiar folks in our village, and also asked about trivial matters about some relatives.
Haixia’s little daughter should be my little niece. She is a delicate and delicate little girl. She picked up a small notebook filled with English written by my daughter and flipped through the pages, chanting 123 times. After a while, she lost her notebook, grabbed her cousin's roller skates and rolled on the floor to play with them. Haixia has fair skin. She wears half-length boots, a long white sweater, and her legs are thin and well-proportioned. She is dressed like a city girl. The little girl is also dressed like a little ball. She is very cute. I remember that Haixia helped me take care of my daughter. At that time, my daughter was not as old as her younger daughter now. It was when my daughter had just passed one year old. Haixia dropped out of elementary school before graduating from elementary school and stayed at home. It was not that her uncle and aunt did not support her in school, but that she was stupid. She was lazy and didn’t like studying, so I brought her to help me take care of my daughter. She continued to help me for half a year until I sent my daughter to kindergarten. It wasn’t until my daughter entered middle school that Haixia left my home. I went to learn tailoring at the tailor shop I found for her. In the blink of an eye, my daughter was fifteen years old, and Haixia was already married and the mother of two children. I asked the third aunt: "Do you love your grandson?"
"Oh, this is someone else's child, not a biological grandson, and I don't hate it when I look at it. It's different from other people's children, but after all It's not from my family." The third aunt said slowly, and she was not afraid that her daughter would be unhappy after hearing this.
"You gave birth to your own daughter, why don't you kiss her?" I said.
"My daughter is from another family, and the child I gave birth to is from that family. It would be great if I had a biological grandson. Quan Xi is so old that she can't even get a wife." Three Aunt said with a sigh.
Quan Xi is the only son of the third uncle and the third aunt. He is two years younger than my son. He is in his mid-twenties. He graduated from high school and took tutoring courses for a year and then wandered around before getting into college. After working hard and earning money, it’s really time for my wife to get married.
“Chengxi’s two sons in our village have been married for several years, and Chengxi has several grandchildren.” said the third aunt.
A picture from more than forty years ago suddenly appeared in my mind. In the middle of winter, a little boy with rough skin, because he was stupid and could not memorize texts, his ears were often pulled by the teacher until they bled. It’s my cousin Cheng Xi who is one year older than me. I haven’t seen him for many years, but I didn’t expect that he is the grandfather of several children.
The third aunt’s repeated nagging about not having a daughter-in-law also reminded me of the scene more than thirty years ago when my grandma repeatedly complained about the second and third uncles not being able to find a daughter-in-law. At that time, because of our family's high status, no one dared to marry their daughter to the son of a landlord. When my grandfather passed away, I was only 16 years old and was in the second year of high school. My third uncle was 23 years old, and my second uncle was both 27. At the age of 10, there is still no marriage planned. Grandpa passed away before completing his major life events. Grandma has no ability to raise a family for her two grown sons. Sister Xianglin just talks about Amao every time she sees him. , until after the reform and opening up, when society no longer regarded high status as a stain of birth, the two uncles successively found suitable aunts and started a family.
I remember that it was a summer vacation thirty-one years ago. The third aunt who was introduced by someone came to my grandma’s house for a blind date. Grandma was so nervous that she didn’t know what to do, so she asked me to take it from where she could get it. The collected ten dollars and a handkerchief were stuffed into the hands of Third Aunt, a shy seventeen-year-old girl at the time. Third Aunt was eight years younger than Third Uncle. She was not very willing, but finally She was still married into our family. Decades have passed, and today, for the first time, she came to the door of my niece, who is one year older than her, to thank me for helping her daughter, and kept talking about marrying her daughter-in-law. Just like my grandma decades ago, it has been four years since my grandma passed away.
After collecting the dirty banknotes, I didn’t even wash my hands or even wipe them. Naturally, I put my hands into the dough again and started kneading it. I couldn’t help but say: "Money is such a dirty thing. How can you do it?" Why don't you wash your hands?" The answer is: "It's like this, how can I wash it off?" The color on my face doesn't look good. At that time, I made up my mind to roll out the noodles and make the steamed buns by myself instead of buying them outside. However, no matter how delicious the steamed buns I made, I would only eat them by myself. Except when my daughter was at the lunch table, I would only cook the steamed buns. I ate a small amount of steamed buns for every meal, and bought them for breakfast in the school cafeteria. She didn’t have time to eat the steamed buns I made. It didn’t matter, so I just made the steamed buns for myself. I actually persisted for a long time, and one morning I finished all the steamed buns. , what should I make for breakfast? I still don’t want to buy it outside. “How about making fried pancakes?” I thought to myself.
I started as soon as I was told, hot the noodles, and put the basin on the heating table to heat it up. I finished my morning exercise, then went into the kitchen to find a pan, turned on the gas, and poured the clear oil into the palm of my hand. Sprinkle a few drops on the board to prevent the dough from sticking to your hands. Take out the sour beans from the refrigerator, knead a few handfuls of the dough and roll it into a round cake. Pour a little clear oil on top, sprinkle some sour bean flour, evenly knead it, and roll it into a roll. , cut into two sections, cut each section vertically, roll them together, and then roll them into a round cake with layers of circles. Light the fire and pour oil. When the bottom of the pan is heated to the appropriate temperature, put the dough cake into the oil pan. , rotate it a few times, cover the pot, wait for the color on the side of the pot to turn over, and fry it for a while, then turn it over again. After a while, a piece of orange-yellow and fragrant Thousand Layer Pancake will be baked, smell it The sweet taste made me salivate. While making another piece of rolled pancake according to the instructions, I suddenly thought: "Oh, I still owe a friend a favor. I am alone in front of that thick stack of pancakes and drink Babao." No matter how delicious the sugar tea is, I can only eat a little bit. Isn’t it a pity that there is no one to eat such delicious food with me? "I called someone immediately, but my friend and his wife were still greedy for bed and refused to get up, so I screamed. After cooking twice, making sugar and tea, and finishing the house hygiene, they came to the door slowly. Sure enough, they were full of praises when they saw the pancakes I brought to the table. The woman said, "I didn't expect you could cook them." There are all kinds of food!” I saw the two of them eating it eagerly, with smile lines on their faces filled with sweetness. The man said, “Your family used to be landlords, so the food must be very good. Right?" I took the opportunity to brag: "Yes, my grandma cooks well, and my mother cooks well, and now I do well, haha!"
I added wolfberry and garlic to my drink. Tea with dates, longan, rock sugar and other condiments, and sweet pancakes, we talked about the vast world of leisure. Others praised my cooking skills, but I myself was not modest. Grandma Wang sold melons and boasted about herself. My thoughts were in my mind while bragging. Suddenly, I jumped back in time several decades and saw my grandpa returning from an entertainment trip. He looked at my grandma and me with expectant eyes and said with a smile: "My wife's pancakes were so fried today. I ate a lot of them!"
"Tian" is a word that my grandpa likes to use, and it means soft. Baking oil pancakes is also a skill. Some people bake pancakes that are hard and rigid, with few layers and tasteless. Like a certain girl and daughter-in-law whom my grandfather praised, she can pan pancakes with countless layers, making them soft, sweet and delicious.
My grandpa has been a vegetarian all his life, and maybe he also ate meat when he was very young. That is something I have no way of knowing. Since I can remember, my grandpa and grandma have always been vegetarian, and there is still a statue of Bodhisattva in the house. , I am not sure whether they are Buddhists or not. At that time, I was very dissatisfied with their behavior. At a young age, I understood that life should be enjoyed. Meat is such a delicious thing. I have been greedy since I was a child. Most of our family members are Greedy. My wife, grandfather, several uncles, me and my younger sisters and brothers are all extremely greedy. Only my grandmother and mother are not very greedy in the family. My father tries his best to restrain himself and respect his elders first when he has delicious food. No matter how much I care about children, my grandparents are the only ones who are so light that they don’t touch any meaty food. They even stay away from onions, garlic, leeks and other vegetables that are said to have a smell. There was a time when I felt that my grandparents had been in too much trouble. I wanted to use their doting on me to force them to break the habit of eating meat, but my mother said that my grandpa would vomit when he smelled the fishy smell. My grandpa spent his whole life studying the yin and yang of the Book of Changes. It can be said that he still has some beliefs of his own. Grandma’s big characters Not knowing anyone, she gave up her desire for delicious food purely out of respect for her man.
I have followed my grandfather as a vegetarian for decades. For my grandparents, the best food is sesame fried pancakes or fried pancakes, cooked pickles fried in clear oil, or lentil sprouts. Fried vermicelli and a meal of sugar tea are the best enjoyment. They never ate any eggs in their lives. My grandma also raised chickens and pigs, but all of them were sold to get some money for oil and salt. During the years when I accompanied my grandparents to celebrate the New Year, I was so greedy that I couldn’t stand the food of my grandparents. It’s light. When my father or mother sent me to my grandma’s house, they would bring me some cooked meat. It would be unimaginable for anyone else to have the smell of fishy meat on the stove at my grandma’s house. My grandpa would be furious and scold me. Grandma was ashamed of herself and would give other people a bad look, but I was an exception. My grandpa and grandma’s love for me went beyond their beliefs. For the cooked meat I brought, my grandma would personally heat it for me on the stove. My grandpa smiled and didn’t complain at all. He just asked grandma to scrub the stove a few times to remove the fishy smell. Grandpa also asked grandma to pass on a message to him. The families of several brothers and nephews must invite their precious grandsons to eat meat during the Chinese New Year. If anyone doesn’t call, my grandpa will be unhappy. Therefore, starting from New Year’s Eve in those years, I was treated by several of my maternal uncles. There was a schedule of invitations, and I was always a guest at every house I went to. I was spoiled like that, and I could never bear the grievance or let go of my self-esteem for the rest of my life.
Now I can’t even remember how many years it has been since my grandpa passed away. After my grandpa passed away, my grandma lived for several more years. It has been six or seven years since my grandma passed away now. I don’t know what they are in the other world. Looks like. Today, while eating the fried pancakes that I made very well, I couldn't help but think of my grandparents. They were a hard-working couple who gave me countless love. They played a huge role in shaping my personality. Function, I love my grandparents deeply. As long as my life is still there, I will always miss my two relatives. I hope that the souls of my grandparents in heaven can feel that my granddaughter, who was spoiled by them, is thinking of them from the bottom of my heart. !