Whether active or passive, the city is becoming our most dominant living space. Generations of people have been shaped by the city and shaped the city, examining life and being examined by life. 2020 is a year of forced grounding. No matter where we are, whether we are calm, irritable, at a loss, or with palpitations, it is a suitable opportunity for many people to re-examine their relationship with “a city”. Right now, the editorial team of “Living in the City” is once again opening a major essay contest. Record your story with the city you are living in or have lived in, record its answers to the questions we all ask about dreams, love and hope, record all the people and things you can’t forget here, and record its unique look that belongs to you only. The essay is valid for a long time, so send an email to [email protected] and mark “People in the City” in the title. We look forward to hearing from you.
1
I have been outside for many years and have visited some cities, but it seems that every city has a river that cannot be bypassed. For example, the Yangtze River in Wuhan, the Xiangshui River in Changsha, and the Yongjiang River in Nanning, the locals take it for granted that the river is their eternal mother, and that they live and die in her embrace.
Xiaogan has a mother of its own.
When I was young, my mother took me to my grandmother’s house by walking along the river bank. She said that the river was called the Rolling River (Rolling, in Xiaogan dialect, means wheel. The river around Xiaogan City, the old Xiaogan people are called roller river). A river, separated from the north and south banks, flows into two different lives in Xiaogan. The people on the south bank call the people on the north bank as “that end of the river”, and the people on the north bank call the people on the south bank as “the head of the river”.
The people of the south bank, belonging to the suburbs of Xiaogan, are living in brick and concrete bungalows next to the urban areas of Xiaogan. Early in the morning, they can get up and walk to the bus stop on the roadside, take a short bus ride to the rice pub under the big flyover in town, and line up a table of freshly made hot dry noodles, rice wine, bean curd, three fresh rice noodles, and live the addiction of city people who are “not at home early in the morning”.
People in the north bank, belonging to the rural area of Xiaogan, mostly live in old houses with yellow mud and bricks. Early in the morning, pull out a bundle of firewood to the outside of the house “stove”, roll a bowl of porridge or noodles in a large iron pot, heel on the threshold, on the pickled vegetables, along the edge of the bowl bite by bite shiver.
My grandparents’ house is located in an earthen house on the north bank of the river. It is said to be an earthen house, which really humiliates the hardworking grandfather, but the outer walls of the house are indeed made of thick yellow clay. A beam on the ridge of the roof is blackened by smoke and fire, should be the most valuable building materials for the whole house. From the beam to spread out in all directions, is a solid house frame, filled with masonry gaps, dirt will be wrapped into one. The south-facing double-opening door, somehow suffocated into the shadow of someone else’s high-rise, and could not see a few rays of sunlight all day long, the original single-opening back door became the main door by the way. The left ear room was full of miscellaneous things, the right one was a kitchen, and there was a room to the left and right of the hall. My mother said that as my aunts and uncles grew older, there were differences between men and women, so my grandfather partitioned the right room into two rooms.
Before I was born, my aunts and uncles had become city dwellers. My uncle was a great student and went to Wuhan to study, and after graduation, he ate official meals and settled in Wuhan. Second aunt, third aunt, my mother, sister-in-law, all found a living in the city on the south coast, married and had children. Only the eldest aunt, the eldest sister like mother, came out early, started a family early, and has been honestly working as a farmer with the eldest aunt’s husband in the neighboring village. The house is just a smell of wood and decay to the grandchildren, and there are usually only two people in the house, grandparents.
In addition to the necessary work, grandmother rarely do anything in the house, all grandfather to take care of. Grandfather is a three sticks can not hit the gas to the deflated bag, labor life, outside the farming, at home to do housework, in addition to discipline disobedient aunts and uncles, rarely speak. My mother said that when she was young, my grandmother was a poor peasant family, and my grandfather had been a landlord, and my grandmother married, and that was a dowry. So, grandpa spent his life doing small and low. Of course, there may be some jokes, but Grandpa really did not let Grandma worry too much about the family’s life.
However, my mother also said, don’t look at grandmother every day to shout a lot, a big event, or will honestly stand behind grandpa, listen to his command, “your grandmother often said to the outside is ‘face I took, the inside well, but also depends on my house man'”.
In 2006, grandfather died of a sudden illness, the day of the funeral, according to the old rituals of his hometown, grandmother could not appear. She hid in the room next to the old house. In the hall, my uncle commanded the uncles and aunts who were carrying the casket to start the funeral, and kept telling them to “keep it down”. The coffin was shaking on the rope, the rope was hoarse, “creaking”, the hall was stuffy and quiet.
“Thump-thump-thump,” the group tried, the pavilion head knocking on the door frame. A few sobs of grandmother leaked from the inner room. The end of the pavilion slammed the door frame, “Clang!” , finally out of the hall. “Ai-ho!” A wail, the aunts immediately rushed together, deadly against the lunging grandmother. The uncles shouted to each other, busy and orderly, and the women from all sides, looking around for loose objects to clean up. Everyone was doing hard work and had no time to look at the struggling grandmother. The smoke and fire inside and outside the hall were dyed red.
After the funeral, Grandma was in a trance for a long time. The aunt next door called, “Come back and see, what’s wrong with Auntie?”
For several days in a row, Grandma sat at the door with her ear pressed against the door frame, looking very alert. My mother and sister-in-law went back, a little frightened, and held her up with their arms around her.
“Mom?”
“Ah …… you guys?” Grandma came back to her senses a little.
But just for a moment, she regained her alertness: “Come, listen, is there someone knocking at the door behind?”
Aunt hurriedly stretched over half his head to explore, coaxing: “No, Mom, go inside, okay?”
“Someone.” Grandmother shook herself to her feet, “The old man is back, open the door!”
She struggled for strength against the door frame, her neck stretched and twisted back. Aunt and mother squatted, holding her up like a bowl of inexhaustible hot tears.
2
After that, Grandma hovered between wakefulness and trance from time to time, and her temperament had changed a lot. Whenever the family gathered, she cursed at the slightest disagreement. For hours on end, she would talk and sing, not knowing what she was upset about, and no one dared to advise her. My uncle said, “The old lady is getting more and more difficult.” My mother said, “The old man used to be the one who shouldered the burden, but now that the old man is gone, she always needs to find some sense of existence.”
After my grandfather died, my grandmother, who never cooked, had to learn how to cook for herself. In the beginning, it was my sister-in-law who made the food every day and sent it to her on her bicycle. After a few days of eating, Grandma said, “I’m not too old to walk, I’ll eat on my own, I don’t want you to send it.” After a few more days, grandmother did not even want to go: “You are a married girl, I go to dinner every day, some people gossip, do not go!”
Great aunt’s husband was so scared that he called his aunts to explain, “I never said anything like that, that’s my own mother.”
Everyone laughed at him: “Oh, Mom is such a strong temper, what do you care about her.”
Grandmother learned from others, get up in the morning with newspaper stove fire, make a pot of porridge or other soft food, to eat, eat a bowl of hot, but the food is not a worry, the day up early, go a few miles outside, large and small vegetable stalls are many, are acquaintances, grandmother take a handful, also do not have a few money.
Once you’ve dealt with this kind of thing, the rest will be better. Three or two games of mahjong, morning, noon and night, a couple of cents at the bottom, the whole day’s win or loss is only a few bowls of hot noodles money.
At the end of 2008, the notice of demolition was sent down, saying that several villages along the north coast in the past, to be demolished to make way for the widening of the highway. The conditions given were very generous: those who were willing to cooperate with the demolition could get resettlement houses by head or by area, and those who did not want houses could also get a considerable amount of demolition money.
Grandmother strongly disagreed with the demolition, and with her arms crossed, she stopped the person who handed out the notice at the door, calm and obstinate: “I don’t need your money, if you want to demolish the house, wait until I die.”
My uncle persuaded my grandmother to demolish the house and go live with me in Wuhan. Grandmother refused: “You have your home, I have my home, do not get used to, together for what?”
“Mom ……” uncle stopped talking.
Grandmother “tossed” very much, they found the village’s strong labor, the old house behind the original deserted land paste cement, build a new shed. The uncle thought she wanted to follow the example of other people “more land to estimate a good price”, and diligently rushed back to help her to expand outside.
“The old man taught you this? You’ve been reading in the belly of a dog!” Grandmother scolded without mercy. My mother said that Grandma just wanted to fix up the house so that she could “leave” with some dignity and not be stuck in the narrow door like Grandpa (when he left), unable to get out and unsettled.
In those two years, my aunts persuaded my grandmother to live in the city, but she was not moved.
In July of 2011, I left Xiaogan to study in the south. When talking to my mother on the phone on a daily basis, she always mentions two things about my grandmother, detailing her obstinacy and her helplessness. To support this, she often had to learn a few lines of her aunts’ complaints: “Why is the old mother so argumentative?”
“It is the community (bar), I do not know that day on …… hey, or received the city is better.”
At first, many elderly people in the village, like their grandmothers, were reluctant to demolish the house, and the demolition proceeded slowly. However, by 2012, the village had already left a group of people, while grandmother still remained steadfast. After repeatedly persuading Granny to go to Wuhan to no avail, my uncle took the initiative and said he would take some food money every month and let Granny take turns to live temporarily at her sisters’ homes in Xiaogan City, and when Granny figured it out and was willing to go to Wuhan with him, when she was picked up.
In fact, the aunts could not let Grandma go and were very much against it. Aunt, who had always been gentle, was furious and “gathered” several aunts to call uncle: “Look down on which? You are a city dweller, pay a little money is quite honorable, is not it?” Several other aunts also with a cry: “The old man risked (no), the old mother you do not leave us well guard?”
The third aunt waved her arm and made up her mind: in the shortest possible time, she would transform her grandmother into a standard old lady in the city who played cards in her spare time and took care of her grandchildren in her busy time.
The group was in a frenzy, crying and laughing, as a tacit agreement. The third aunt, like her grandfather, is a thunderbolt and diligent. She took the lead and sent her husband to take Grandma home on a motorcycle the next day, and packed a few of Grandma’s clothes haphazardly at the old house and rode her bike behind her.
On the way, she couldn’t help but stop and talk to her sisters on the phone, sounding smug: “I’m sure my mother will come here first, I’m so close and convenient, there’s nothing missing.” My mother was “indignant” in the family group (QQ group at first, but later switched to WeChat group): “You’re the only one who’s always acting like an old man!”
After all, Aunt San is a person who can’t stay idle. She gets up every day at five or six o’clock, rushes to the morning market, buys fresh vegetables, and makes several kinds of breakfast. After serving the family, she immediately went downstairs to the mahjong hall to get a good table for her grandmother. “Fight fight fight! If you win, it’s yours, if you lose, it’s mine.” The third aunt pressed grandmother on the stool and immediately got on her bicycle again to rush to work.
Grandma really loved playing mahjong, and when she lived in the old adobe house, she used to move the table and get together with the aunts and uncles in the front and back streets to play a small game of 30 or 50 cents in the daylight. The third aunt was confident: “Now let her play in three or five pieces, and when she gets used to playing big cards, she won’t be able to go back.”
The city of Xiaogan is full of shrewd people. This thing, the mahjong, dispersing the thrill of their strategy, and stimulate the wallet, find a place, a day sitting, unless eating, do not go down the line of battle. Grandma went to work every day, sitting on the bench early and being picked up by her third aunt who was off duty, “happy as can be”.
The mahjong renovation plan seemed to be going well. But not long after, the downstairs dads and mothers-in-law, suddenly one after another to the third aunt to complain: “quickly get your mother back yo, not here to harm people!”
They told me that my grandmother played cards indiscriminately, and that she was not a good card player. The third aunt did not know what to think, but she was patient and bowed repeatedly and promised to “go back and talk about it”. In private, she could only persuade her grandmother: “It’s not like you don’t have any money, just lose.”
Grandmother does not appreciate, the words are unusually angry: “a city people, the tip of the (stingy) to die, not as good as rural people. I don’t want me to play, I’m not going!”
Not many days later, the shake downstairs of the third aunt’s house began to politely refuse grandmother to join, as long as she sat at the table, the other three stools are not to sit. Bored and bored, Grandma rushed in and out of Aunt San’s house, cursing, “Let me go back! I’m sick of being in town!”
Aunt San found Grandma difficult to understand and complained to the group, “My mother used to be a peaceful person, but now she can’t get along with anyone.”
Aunt San is argumentative, and Grandma is even more argumentative, just like each other. The day-to-day open and secret encounter, can not retreat, words finally in one day torn into a line.
“Hey you go back, I don’t care about you.” The third aunt is indignant “turn the other cheek”.
Grandmother also “angry” “clang” group on a few pieces of clothing: “told you not to get me to the city, I do not know how comfortable in the countryside.”
“Hey I’m still doing it wrong, right?”
“Not in my ear dry (noise), one two annoying people!”
Aunt in the phone with my mother to learn tongue, said laughing: “Three sisters, ah, is simply a mess.”
3
My sister-in-law married well and lives in one of the most upscale neighborhoods in Xiaogan City. She sent her sister-in-law to drive her grandmother to her house in person at the small earth house. The youngest sister-in-law was very “generous”, even invited and coaxed grandma into the car, and said, “Mom, don’t take the mousse (anything), let’s go buy a new one.”
Grandmother glared at him: “You’re rich, aren’t you?”
My sister-in-law also followed and complained: “You are now quite floating ah also.”
My sister-in-law suddenly turned off the engine and drove honestly in front.
In the family group, my sister-in-law fervently analyzed with the group, “My mother is used to staying in the countryside, so we can’t be too hasty, we have to help her transition slowly.” She went to the farmer’s market to buy a few feet long pots, put them on the terrace of the house, and filled them with soil, poked bamboo poles, and plopped a lot of vegetable and fruit seedlings. My sister-in-law, together with everyone else, begged her grandmother, “Mom, many vegetables are now treated with pesticides, so let’s grow them at home and distribute them to each family.”
Grandmother agreed reluctantly: “Where can’t you buy vegetables, you want me to help you grow them.”
That said, Grandma was very careful. My sister-in-law bought her all kinds of tools to turn over the soil and weed the plants, and grandmother spent every day watching over the big pots, carefully cutting and picking them. My sister-in-law was so proud of herself that she took pictures of her grandmother’s care and sent them to the group: “Look, this is the right way.”
But it didn’t last long, just a few weeks. One day, when my sister-in-law and brother-in-law returned from work, the next-door neighbor came to the door, complaining: “We don’t have a problem with growing vegetables on the terrace, but you can’t have a chicken club, don’t you stink people to death?”
“Raising chickens?” My sister-in-law was very surprised and ran to the terrace to take a look. Grandma was holding a small bowl to scatter rice on the ground, and several half-grown chickens were pecking happily.
“Oh my mother,” my sister-in-law snatched the bowl from her hand, “how can we raise chickens in the community!”
“You can’t have chickens after planting vegetables?” Grandma’s back was straightened.
The neighbors outside were still complaining to her husband, and her sister-in-law was so anxious that she jumped to her feet: “This is in the city, Mom!”
“Then I’ll go back to the countryside.” Grandma cursed again, rushing in and out, “I said no to the city, but they all have to get me here!”
Aunt softened her tone: “Okay, okay, I’ll think of a way, you don’t have to get mad.”
She panicked and begged in the group, “Come up with some ideas, what about the chicken, what about me, what about my mother?”
“What to do what to do, you are smart, think of your own way society.” My mother was the most energetic, sending out a dozen laughing emojis in a row.
The company’s business is a company that has been in the business for a few days, but it has not been able to come up with a solution, and the smell of chicken shit on the terrace has smoked half of the building. The property owner finally came to the door and wanted to dispose of the chicken. Grandma raised a broom to sweep the chicken poop across the door: “Try it, try it with my chicken!”
My sister-in-law rushed to get the car from the unit and picked up my sister-in-law to rush home. The two of them surrounded my grandmother left and right, avoiding a bad fight. Grandma became famous in her sister-in-law’s neighborhood.
“You know what those chewing women in the property call the old lady?” At the wine table, my sister-in-law told my father, “Female Guan Gong!”
The group at the table laughed together, and my sister-in-law was so angry that she put her face to the back of her head.
Grandma didn’t give her sister-in-law a chance to “stay” and ran back while they were at work, and recruited a cart to haul a few “crops” back to the hut.
The third aunt failed, and so did the sister-in-law. My mother was apprehensive to pick up my grandmother, but also failed. She said to my mother, “Don’t make me sick, if I die, you won’t have a place to cry.”
Grandma went to the village kiosk and made a phone call to her uncle: “You’re the big brother, tell them to stop, I won’t recognize any of them if they get tired of it.”
No one expected that grandmother would be so obstinate, are afraid to mention the matter of receiving her to the city. After all, they are not at ease. Each family agreed to put a few hundred dollars a month in the great aunt, she will go to the small earth house from time to time to see what grandmother needs, what to eat. But when the holidays come, the group gathered at the earth house, grandmother will take out all the money, against the ledger, one by one to return.
“I can use a few money, a handful of vegetables a handful of rice can live, you guys keep the money, I do not want.”
The aunt next door said she could see her grandmother going around a few pots of vegetables early every morning, and when she was done, she went to the bucket of water next door, “running in and out to scrub and wash. The stools and tables in the hall are wiped once a day. After doing this, if the sun is fine, she will meet the old mothers before and after to play mahjong.
She consoled her aunts, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it, we are old, the city is not as comfortable as here.”
The aunt also said, “Forget it, I’ll make a few more trips, she’s too old to run far.”
But only in the early spring of 2013, one morning, a neighboring aunt found her grandmother collapsed next to the vegetable bowl.
She immediately asked her son to step on the tricycle and pull the person to the hospital. Anyone who could go to the hospital immediately rushed to the hospital. The uncle, who never cried, climbed on the aunt’s arm and sobbed: “My old man is like this, saying that she fell down, the old mother …… old mother ……”
“Pop!” Third aunt rushed up and gave him a slap, “What are you messing up, you can’t mess up!”
Fortunately, grandmother just high blood pressure attack, the aunt sent in time, there is no serious injury, but she is old, some tossing and turning, weakness is very strong.
When picking up back, grandmother all the way in a whisper murmured: “photos, photos put have to (give) me ……”
People did not know what she was talking about.
Back at the small adobe, my uncle carried Grandma to bed. She suddenly seemed to have a spirit, bulging her eyes around a circle, a fierce sweep, embracing the bedside grandfather’s photo into her arms. “Dead yo, dead yo,” Grandmother lost her strength, her head hit the pillow, “dead I see you yo.”
The third aunt covered her mouth, whimpered and ran out, and the uncle, with his arms braced straight, gradually knelt by the bed.
From then on, no one ever mentioned the transformation of grandmother into an old lady in the city. We all agreed to see who was free to stay with Grandma for a few days in the small earth house during their respective breaks each month.
Grandma was a bit resistant: “It will be fine, you all have old and young people at home, what do you care if I do mousse (do something).”
4
When she returned from the hospital to the earth house for a few days, my uncle in Wuhan came with good news: my daughter-in-law (my sister-in-law) was pregnant! He drove all the way back to Xiaogan from his unit and told the news himself to his grandmother who was playing cards outside the house.
“Ah?!” Grandmother pushed away the card badge in front of her hand and kept turning around the table. The aunt squeezed grandmother’s hand: “Panic a mousse (what), quickly pack things to Wuhan.”
“Go go go!” She dove into the back seat, patting the leather seat, “Go go go!”
My uncle said that my grandmother laughed and cried all the way, and her mouth went back and forth: “I’m looking forward to it, the fourth generation, the fourth generation.”
Third aunt’s mahjong didn’t keep grandmother, sister-in-law’s vegetable bowl didn’t keep grandmother, but granddaughter-in-law’s pregnancy kept her. Grandma stayed in Wuhan for nearly seven months, taking care of her sister-in-law like an old mother. The sister-in-law even secretly called my mother: “Goo, you persuade the mother-in-law to go back, Mo young did not happen, the old fell first.”
My mother laughed and comforted her: “Don’t be silly girl, she is happy.”
The day my sister-in-law went into labor, my sister-in-law and I drove a car with our aunts to Wuhan.
Outside the maternity ward, grandmother, like a female god of war, gave orders.
“Boss, go with the doctor to do the hospital procedures, do not get into trouble delay.”
“Lao San, told you to prepare things in advance, point well ha, do not miss.”
“The youngest, the car, outside or not, do not open the air conditioning, the little one can not blow.”
My mother cautiously asked, “Mother, where am I?”
“You stay, want someone to hit the shake (standby).” Grandmother did not look back, staring at the light above the delivery room, silver hair sough. I don’t know how long it took, but there was a soft cry from the delivery room, and the baby was born. Grandmother swayed, resisting the urge to rush up to the body. The first thing that happened was that my aunt came to the front and took the swaddling clothes from the doctor’s hand, looked deeply and became a tearful person.
She handed the baby to Grandma: “Mom, look, look where.”
“Good, all good, all good.” Grandma’s hands sagged helplessly and kept murmuring softly. It was as if I saw a halo of light that slowly gathered back into her body, lighting up a dim oil lamp in the delivery room.
I thought that Grandma would stay in Wuhan, but she did not. The next day, she had to go back to the small earth house with the car. My aunt tried to hold her back: “Mom, there are big and small places here, where can you go?”
Grandma bowed her head and sat in the car, wrapping her hands around: “suffer what you have to suffer, enjoy the blessings you should enjoy, I should go back.”
Driving from Wuhan to Xiaogan, crossing the boundary marker of the highway, we saw the Rolling River, like a silver ribbon, shining brightly. Grandma kept looking out, squinting her eyes. Suddenly, she let out a few half-singing, half-white chants, “This time hey ~ cross the life pass ~ go to the death pass ~”
“Oi eh!” Third Aunt impatiently twisted her body, the seat creaked, “Old Mother, you do not speak blindly ha.”
Grandma stopped talking and didn’t turn around.
As we drove forward, the refractive light of the Rolling River became more and more blinding, I knocked down the sun visor and did my best to drive the car smoothly.
Grandma sang again: “The dead, hey, walk well, don’t look back.”
I suddenly recalled in my head: the day of my grandfather’s funeral, the coffin to cross the Rolling River, the lead mourner waved, so that the uncle carrying the spirit to go ahead, he was behind, opened his voice and shouted a long tune, and grandmother was humming the same, the tune is only one tune, a few words back and forth singing. The tune is like a constant wind wandering on the land, caressing men, women and children.
In the rearview mirror, a few strands of silver hair on her temples were scattered outside the window, folding together with the silvery light of the Rolling River, like the yellowing grass that had lost its color because the sunlight was blocked by the ridge of the waves.
I felt that the beauty of my grandmother was like a poem with only a few lines. I also knew that Grandma was missing Grandpa.
5
Grandma lived back in the small earth house.
The news of the demolition of the house came four or five years ago, and the people in front and behind the house slowly moved out, and many old people went to the city with their children. With fewer people, Grandma had fewer places to go, but she still didn’t want to move away. From time to time, her uncle drove her daughter-in-law home with the children to see her, and at first Grandma was happy, but later she was reluctant, saying, “Don’t run around and make the little one sick.”
The house opposite the main entrance was the first to be torn down, and the double-opening doors of the adobe house saw the light of day again. Looking north was an endless field. Grandma stood at the gate, probably unable to see, and sniffed hard. She said in a small, regretful voice, “It’s not the same smell as before.” Then silently closed the door.
Grandmother herself put a veil over herself, and the small earthen house was her world.
I had the illusion that since my grandfather passed away, the years had never left a trace on my grandmother and the small earth house. The old house hall of the eight immortal table, the case, day after day placed neatly, she wiped clean, originally belonged to grandfather’s earthen stove, in her blackened face, daily reflecting the fire. Even though the environment outside has changed again and again, the smell and scenery in the earthen house has remained the same as it was before grandpa passed away. Grandpa is gone, but Grandma is still here, clinging to the familiar days of the past. The children who drove to visit, no matter how close to the countryside earth house, she will not go out to welcome a step, children leave, step three back, she also will not be reluctant.
I can also appreciate the helplessness of my aunts and uncles. After being away for a long time, I have questioned day by day whether I am just a lonely passerby in my hometown. No matter how far away it is, I can’t help but look back slowly to see the people and things behind me, do they miss it, and are they as unhappy as I am. The older I get, the more afraid I am to face the fear that familiar people will pass away. Perhaps only when you are that age of your grandmother can you find a frank way that you can adapt.
In 2018 I went home, borrowed a bicycle, wandered around, headed in a familiar direction, but couldn’t find a familiar road. I stopped a grandfather on the concrete bridge across the river and I asked him, “Which direction is your home (honorific in dialect) Starfire Village going?”
“Long ago clang clang (demolition) yo!” The grandfather raised both hands upward and answered with a strong voice.
I politely took out a cigarette and lit it for him, and the old grandfather told me a lot. He said, until the day of demolition, older people are still reluctant to leave, must see the top of the tile fell, fell to the ground and smashed, only to be resigned to life. My mother said that the stubborn grandmother, who had previously been a stickler, moved out openly when people gave a specific date for demolition.
After moving out, Grandma lived with several native grandmothers in the temporary housing provided by the government, food and housing are available, the environment is also good, until the end of 2019, resettlement housing up, originally prepared to move after the Spring Festival in 2020, did not expect the epidemic to disrupt the plan.
In May this year, the epidemic in Hubei eased a lot. When the streets became a little more pedestrianized, my grandmother was clamoring for a date to move my grandfather’s grave into the new house. Mom complained on the phone, “I don’t know what’s the hurry, but she didn’t go into the city before, and now she’s just settled outside, so she has to do both things together.”
The new land for relocation is a few kilometers to the east of the old house, on the south bank of the Rolling River. In the plan, several bays (villages) within a few square kilometers on both sides of the river are to make way for the widened road and be housed in high-rise commercial housing on the new site.
“Can’t even press an elevator, and still clamoring to live and live and live!” Mom’s complaints grew heavier.
I laughed out loud, “She’s finally figured out she wants to be a city dweller, so she’s excited.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
Technically speaking, Grandma, who is almost 80, was “forced” to leave her house and become a “river head” city dweller, but she didn’t have the strength to resist anymore. She finally tasted the same uneasiness that I felt when I was living in a foreign country. However, more than 80 years have given Grandma deep wisdom, and she knew that her reluctance to leave came from the life she was clinging to. It is really going, you can only accompany it on the road.
The new house she moved to, Grandma did not decorate, and we were not allowed to decorate it for her. The furniture in the small earth house, she only needs a brown linen bed, the rest all filled in the soil of the house.
Grandma made a special call to her uncle: “When I die, the house is left to you, but you must pay 30,000 yuan to each family.”
“Old mother, I don’t want the house, you can give it to whoever you want ……”
“Bullshit!” Grandmother broke into another tirade, “This is the ancestral house, you do not keep, let your old sisters to keep?”
Grandmother must have gone to find out, each family to make up 30,000, almost as much as the value of this house. My uncle put the money on each family’s account early on, but everyone returned the money without fail. The great aunt said, “The old mother let you call the money is good, we do not want is also good, we try to obey her wishes, but we have been a brother and sister all our lives, not to do business.”
This is the point that I love them the most, supporting each other, decades, never changed.
I can’t forget the way my grandmother sang on the way home from Wuhan. Is that when she began to reconcile with the past, to openly follow the path of life, no longer insisting on the difference between “city” or “countryside”, no longer caring whether there is a familiar atmosphere in the environment?
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