At 52, she still works for her son

1

In the spring of 2018, When I was decorating my house, my parents came to help.

Six years ago, I made a down payment of 100,000 yuan and another 100,000 in the middle. Finally ready to get the key, the house can not do the mortgage loan, only the remaining balance payment.2 million pay all, to get the key, let a person depressed.

I heard that a few years ago, the developer took our house as collateral for the bank. House guaranty, can’t do net sign a contract, can’t sign a contract, can’t borrow money. This thing has been dragging, dragging some people from a single teenager to a baby will play soy sauce. Developers themselves is a government department, at the beginning they gave everyone housing is also out of good intentions, in order to solve the cadres and workers this “sandwich layer” no housing to live in the problem, but the good done so, everyone a piece of anger.

I have been living in the small city of Tianshui for 10 years, wandering around like a guerrilla. My wife followed me, wandering the city with her bedding and a pile of idle books. Rent a house for 10 years, rent afraid, really rent a heart and body fear. Finally, with a bite of my teeth, I handed over the remaining two hundred thousand dollars balance payment. The more than 200,000 yuan is partly from my salary and income from the manuscript, and partly from my parents’ working in the fields.

At the end of 2017, they got the keys. I opened the door and crept into the house, looking at the empty living room and bedroom with mixed feelings. I even wanted to cry in the echo chamber, but life had roughened my heart, and I did not cry.

When it was warm, my parents came down from Mai Cun to help me clean up. They do a lot of the basic work in decorating the house, such as shovelling the walls, breaking them down, taking out the garbage and moving the materials, which can save a lot of money.

The hardest part is the cement and sand. The room of 100 square metre, use sand at least 4, 5 square, all is mother helped father bag by bag arrive upstairs. A few days later, my father’s fingernails were covered with black bruise and his hands were badly shapeless. Mother too tired to walk, a busy end, sitting on the ground, can not get up. I’m worried about her wounds from the operation, but she doesn’t mind.

In April 2018, the foundation work for the house was almost complete, and the rest was just to add more things. Mother was idle for a few days, feeling that she had nothing to do day by day, so she decided to go to the flower and bird market to see if she could build a farm and earn two pocket money.

Over 50 years old mother, hard half life, toil half life, she is not afraid of hardship, not afraid of suffering, she for their children, for the sake of life, anything can do. But she was afraid of being idle, afraid of having no money, afraid of not being able to do anything for the family.

2

Flower and bird market, there are flowers and birds, there is also an outdoor labor market. It is said that the market, there are no facilities, some people from the countryside, because the traffic is convenient, the flow of people, spontaneously gathered together, waiting for someone to come to work, it is regarded as a part-time job. We here to wait for the odd job called “a yard”, someone called to go, it is to take out. On the field, standing dozens of people, mostly men, dressed in worn camouflage, carrying bags, bags loaded with tile knives, brazing and other tools. The women, too, wore no make-up, and had a lot of old school uniforms that the children had taken off.

Mother went to the first day, came back at noon, carrying a few tomatoes bought in the market, two pounds of tofu, cheap. Frustrated, she sighed, saying that no one called, and even if there was one, a crowd of people came crashing around, unable to squeeze in front of her. More people than live, some people wait for three days, but also can not wait for one, the strength, also can not earn money, waiting for a morning in vain.

Mother cooked, pulled noodles, potato, tomato, tofu a pot of stew.

The next day, mother went out early as usual. She felt that idleness was also idleness, and that it was better to take a part-time job to make two more to support the family. Mother didn’t come back at noon, so she must have gone out.

In the evening, I cook a meal, burn big mix soup, have no pulp water, vinegar. Cut a bunch of potato bumps to fill your stomach. It was nearly nine o ‘clock when mother came back. Dragging a suit of exhaustion, entered the room, ladle a ladle of cold water, down, a butt sitting on the bench, said, “earn scattered flowers” (Gansu area dialect, tired to break up the meaning).

Mother said, to the field, just a hard-faced man riding a motorcycle to call someone, she approached, someone called her. She called another woman and went with her. It’s a ride out. A man who builds three floors and needs to build walls and cement.

Mother couldn’t build a wall, only cement. It’s hard work without a blender. The sand is brought from the door to the yard in a wheelbarrow, filled with bags of cement, and stirred with a shovel, stirring well, pouring water, and stirring again and again until it is thick enough. After a pile of sand, I sweat a little, my arms are sore, my palms are burning. Even though he was working steadily, the man still stared sideways, like a Wolf, roaring and urging his hands to hurry.

At the end of the day, 8 p.m. Sweat wet mother’s hair, face covered with dust, two arms, hang down, can not stretch, leg standing, beating. The trouser leg was also torn by a large piece of steel, like a piece of flesh, hanging from the calf. A penny is hard to earn.

Before leaving, give wages, the mother want 100, the man gave 80. Mother can’t do it. The hard-core man thinks he has damaged his shovel, and will deduct 20 yuan as compensation. Mother reasoned that a shovel was only worth a shovel, especially if it was damaged by your work. The hard-meat man acted like a cattle murderer and refused to give him any. Finally mother chuai on 80 yuan came back, in the mind very grievance. Before she left, a person gave a bottle of green tea, she was sad, flatulent, did not want.

When drinking soup, my mother also talked about their pants, rummaged for a long time, it was impossible to drop the needle sewing, just want to throw away.

“A day can make a person die, only lost 80 yuan, but also attached to a pair of pants, the pants, 30 yuan bought, calculated, a day only earned 50 yuan. Mother sighed, “Farmer, not good when.”

The third and fourth day, mother or early in the morning to go out to play. Until noon, has not taken out, had to use their own earned 80 yuan to buy some dishes, reluctantly came back.

3

To my mother’s disappointment, I went there for a few days, but only one day. She started insinuating to my father that she wanted to work in Tianjin. She didn’t say so at the beginning for fear that I wouldn’t agree, but later she did.

It was noonday, the sun was blazing, the white flowers were falling and the flies were flying. Mother cooked dinner and waited for me after work. After coming back, we had dinner, mother said something about the village, said whose mother had gone out to work, said she was too busy to do anything all day, tentatively asked me if I could go to Tianjin.

I flatly denied: “you are in your early 50s, the health is not good, go out to work, are lowly to serve the people’s work, I feel sorry, besides, our family has not to the degree of hard to live, I somehow still have a little salary in January, plus the manuscript fee, life can barely lead. Besides, your body is anxious, you can’t sleep, your head aches all the year round, you go out to work, you are depressed, you suffer from pain, you look at your face, you are seriously ill again, you earn two for the hospital, don’t you?”

My mother sat on the edge of the bed and said, “What do you do with your little income? Buy a bed, home appliances, a sofa, a cabinet, these, and forty – fifty thousand, where do you have? When I go out, I earn a little. I count.”

“If you want to work, you may as well. Just here in the city, take a job and earn one or two thousand yuan a month. I don’t mind doing something, but don’t go far away.

“The wages are so low here and you are wasting your time. If I can make more money, you will feel more relaxed. What little money you have now, you will probably have spent.”

I was a little angry, said for a long time, did not work, then gas coax ground to shout: “money money, you know money light day.”

Mother said no more, turned her face to the wall, and began to cry.

Over the years, my mother would cry when we spoke a little too loudly. Some things, too, take things too hard, and cry. Cry when things get tough. She seems to have been washed beyond recognition by life, old, plain to the level of noodles, and even trying to squeeze their children for the last bit of their strength.

Mother cried. My heart was sad, wiping tears, the mother comforted for a while, said some heartfelt words.

My mother decided to work in Tianjin anyway.

She is familiar with Tianjin. Every spring, my mother has followed the village women to Work in Tianjin for nearly a decade, since I went to a secondary normal school in 2002, when I graduated from junior high school at the age of 15 and took the exam. I didn’t go for only three or two years. In 2015, because my wife was working as a kindergarten teacher in another county, she lived alone in a small yard in the city. She was afraid, so my mother went to keep her company and never went far away.

In Tianjin, I knew, my mother had no skills. She went to a restaurant occasionally to carry dishes and wash dishes, but mostly to serve the elderly who could not move.

4

Remember one year, mother went to Tianjin to work, more than 4 o ‘clock in the morning train, I sent her. The empty road is smeared with dim lights and latent cold. There were few people walking, only those who had set breakfast lit a fire in the dark.

There were not many people in the waiting room. A train came and took some away. My mother and I sat in the cold blue chair and spoke little. I held the train ticket for my mother and occasionally looked at her out of the corner of my eye.

At 52, she still works for her son
Over the years, she has had headaches, insomnia, and severe eye trouble. In fact, I know, mother is worried. Mother is a good heart, but also a small heart, some things, remember in the heart, can not put down, finally, all the caring has become a chuai in the heart of the disease.

Mother thought I had brought her too much. Nothing really, just two bottles of water, two buckets of instant noodles, a box of biscuits and a little bread. Actually is not much, just the mother think we spend money, some hungry and cold, she will endure for the sake of children.

When the train arrived, mother with her luggage squeezed into the crowd.

I said: “to Tianjin to make a phone call, public, no words, borrow others a dozen.”

Mother said, “HMMM.” He disappeared into the crowd in a hurry.

Mother go out, I seldom send, because of official business, can not get away from the body, sometimes is the younger sister send, also sometimes, the mother simply do not let send, suspicion come and go back and forth spend fare. No, I never said goodbye to my mother. No, I never said goodbye to her. Growing up, I never seemed to say “goodbye” to my mother, let alone hug her. We are all soil growth of people, expression seems to be wooden, some words, nest in the heart, never say out, some words, say half, stuck in the mouth, it is just.

Mother should have been in Tianjin by noon the next day. At noon she did not call, still not in the afternoon, still not in the evening.

My father called me and asked, “Did your mother call?”

“No.”

“I haven’t had a phone call in so long.”

After hanging up, I called my sister, still no news.

Those few days, just happened to happen in Kunming railway station, people in panic. Then MH370 disappeared, more than 200 people lost their lives. When I think about it, I start to worry.

There’s still no word from her, and we can’t get in touch with her. She did not take the mobile phone card, said to go to Tianjin to do it again.

As I thought about my mother’s back in the crowd, I was distraught and regretful. All sorts of wild guesses made me uneasy. I even began to be allergic to every phone call — what happened to my mother? Where is she? Why not make a phone call? Don’t… ? Will not…… ? Although the mother has been out of the door a few times, but has not adapted to the city of heavy traffic and tall buildings into a forest, what’s more, now this world, the heart is so sinister.

On the third day, until the third day, a telephone, unfamiliar number, hurriedly connected, is the mother’s voice.

“Why did it take you days to call?”

“This job just looked for, just did the card.”

“I’m so worried.”

“What do I have to worry about for such a big man?”

5

Mother usually work to the end of the year, the Twelfth lunar month will come back. For a few years in order to earn more money to support the family, the Spring Festival did not come back.

Mother was not in, home with my father, sister 3 people, no one fried bread, no one made sweet fermented grains, no one pressed paste, no one pushed the room, the room was empty, the kitchen was empty, we three in the heart is empty. The years passed unhappily.

So many years, mother in Tianjin scattered served the people, there are 50 or 60? Some, longer, more than half a year, more than a year. Some are short, just a few days. Some people regard people as human beings, but most of them still give up their faces and order people around like slaves.

In Tianjin, my mother waited for work at a place called Shijin Lu, or nanny market, in The hedong district of Tianjin.

This road is full of migrant workers and babysitters, mostly from the south of Gansu. Every year, there are too many people, it is difficult to find a job, we have to wait. Reluctant to spend money, he ate his own steamed buns and slept in a 10 yuan bed. After a few days of waiting, someone called to discuss the salary. Before 2000, now January 3000. Feel salary ok, followed go.

Most of them are old men and women who are paralyzed and cannot take care of themselves. They have to eat and drink, defecate and urinate, help themselves to turn over, take medicine on time, wash clothes and cook food every day… With non-stop work, in exchange for a month’s wages. Some people are better, do not give face, can eat full, will work for a long time. Some were so snobbish, and so vulgar and mean, that they could not do it, and had to beg for their wages for a few days, and come again to Shigin Road, and again to be called.

Living alone in someone else’s house for three or five days feels awkward. I can’t imagine how much tenacity my mother took to live in someone else’s home for nearly a year.

What her mother went through, what she endured, she seldom mentioned, and if she did, she scribbled a few words. Whether she was accustomed to it, or whether she could not bear to recall it, I do not know.

Sometimes When I ask, my mother will only say which one is good and which one is bad. Whose food can eat full, whose food does not eat full. Which TV you can watch and which wi-fi you can’t use? Which for half a day’s wages with her over, which people all the year round sad face, etc., are some real things.

Over the years, I knew, my mother must have endured more than we could possibly in our lives. I just didn’t want to talk about it. The details of her sufferings and wrongdoings, I do not know. All I know is that she is getting older every year.

6

At the end of April 2018, after my mother arrived in Tianjin, she still didn’t come to work for several days. She didn’t call, she didn’t call, she didn’t answer. Our family is so worried that we don’t know what’s going on.

A few days later, she called and said she had a job, an old lady.

My father comforted me and said, if you find it, do a good job and don’t worry about it.

After a few days, I call mother’s phone, listen to the noise over there, ask the situation, just know, the old lady died in a few days, she came out, have to find again. Later, I found a family and worked for a few days. In the middle of the night, my father got drunk and made phone calls, nagging about our household chores. The next day, I gave my mother a salary and dismissed her.

For the third time, my mother came to Shijin Lu, slept in a tongpu and ate cakes. After waiting for many days, she found another one to wait on an old lady. The old lady could not speak. She was paralyzed and could barely move her arms or legs. It wasn’t too much of an effort to help, but the family still had enough to do, so they went.

After some time, my mother said that she could not sleep again, and the next day she had a headache and felt drowsy. I sent my friend to buy a sleeping pill in the hospital. She took half a pill in two days and barely slept.

“With you there and little to do, it is difficult to sleep at night when one is not tired. Besides, a day without anyone to talk, leisure, will be cranky, once thinking, can’t sleep. And in other people’s homes, depression, a long time, also depressed, and you are also sick root.” I said, then consoled her, “Don’t think about it. Call me when you need something.”

My mother said on the other end of the phone, “I didn’t think anything, just insomnia.”

For 10 years, my mother had been suffering from diseases, mainly insomnia and headaches. I’ve been to every hospital in town, big and small, and I’ve been there, and I can fill a room with medicine, but it still doesn’t help. All kinds of hearsay folk remedies have been tried, to no avail. Said to go to the big hospital outside the city, the mother was afraid of money, dead or alive do not go.

Every night, she goes to bed at 10 o ‘clock, can’t sleep, has been awake, awake until early in the morning, doze off for a while, is also a restless dream. Sleep is also very shallow, casually have a breeze blowing grass move, woke up, woke up, insomnia, 5, 6 o ‘clock in the morning, got up.

When I got up, I was groggy and listless. It was as if I had an engine in my head. My mother squeezed her bloodshot dry eyes and hugged her head, saying bitterly that she had not slept well last night and had a headache. We were at a loss what to do but comfort her not to fantasize and take more exercise.

Mother scratched her hair, said: “If only there were a handful of sleeping pills, give me to eat, sleep for three or four days, My head will be good, I really lack of sleep disease.”

Our heart is frightened, busy say, sleeping pill is not disorderly eat. She closed her sour eyes and muttered, Living people are trouble.

Mother’s illness, has been so endure, endure 10 years. Finally, she felt that it had cost a lot of money, and she really didn’t want to see it. Will endure.

7

In 2017, my mother always felt a stomachache, went to check her stomach, nothing much, took a bunch of medicine, took it, still the same. She bought some medicine for her stomach, but it still didn’t help. Go to a hospital again check, it is gallstone. Become an operation, say to be minimally invasive, also want to cut a walnut big hole on the belly, cut gallbladder away. Out of the gallbladder came five or six stones, the largest one, like a broad bean.

After the operation, for three days, the mother was extremely weak and in severe pain. In the back, you can get out of bed slowly. Ten or so days. Discharged from the hospital, mother returned to his hometown Mai Cun.

Before leaving, she still has been thinking about reimbursement of things, say I want to make room money now, borrowed debt again, do not have money in hand, she does an operation, spent a pimple again, ah, really…… With these words, the flowers began to float in the eyes.

In Mai Village for a few months, my mother could not rest, cooking, sewing and washing, carrying wood and sweeping kang leaves. It should be said that two or three months after the operation of gallstones, the recovery is about the same, but the place where the mother had done the operation always have what drag in general, pain does not stop.

She came to Tianshui, I took her to review. I work in a public institution in this small town. The public affairs are not big, but they are trivial and complicated. I am tired out after a few years. I looked at my free time, took my mother to the hospital for surgery, the doctor lifted up his skirt, a look, said the wound is good, there may be inflammation, casually opened a few boxes of anti-inflammatory drugs, to eat.

The medicine is finished, still ache, go to check again, the doctor is impatient obviously, say wound grows good, have no what, go back. But that place aches, finally we change a hospital, the doctor sees, say is stomach, do gastroscope, still be really stomach, have gastritis.

When she got the medicine for her stomach and ate at my place at noon, she felt uneasy again and said, “I am really a sick pot. If I can’t earn anything for you, that’s all. I have a good health, but you can see that it is either bravery or stomach that makes you restless for a year.”

I had to comfort her, sick this matter not from the person, who also do not want to be sick, as long as can see the right place, can cure it, and I still have health insurance card.

Mother said: “you card on that money, not a matter, besides you still want to use.”

She complained about herself for a while, sighing and eating. At noon, arrived at the bus station, bus back to the Village.

8

In 2018, my mother went to the last family of four, including the old woman, the old woman’s daughter, the old woman’s grandson and her granddaughter’s daughter-in-law. The woman was the master of the house, in her fifties, about the same age as her mother. My grandson and his wife are about 30 years old, like me. The family all work in the enterprise, the family is in average condition.

Every morning, my mother cleaned the old lady’s diapers, then wiped her face and fed her food. Near noon, cook for the family and feed the old lady. In the evening, still cook, feed rice. In the middle of this, in addition to regularly help the old lady turn over, cleaning, a little more time. They have a TV at home, TV can be watched casually, mother used to kill time, but watch a long time, it is not interesting.

They had wi-fi, and my mother didn’t know how to use her smartphone (it was an old one I used), so she messed around and got connected. Can connect again afterwards not to go up, originally the somebody else set password, don’t let use, a fear cost flow rate, two will fear to get online delay work. In her spare time, my mother took out her mobile phone and looked at the photos I had taken before. She really didn’t know how else to spend her lonely time.

Mother didn’t have much to say to her employer’s family. For one thing, my mother didn’t speak Mandarin, they didn’t understand the Gansu dialect, and for another, she didn’t know what to say — she had already said things as soon as she arrived, like where she was from, how many people in her family, what they were doing, and so on. Usually cook, also with rice as the main. In northwest China, we eat noodles all the year round. My mother can make good noodles, but not stir-fry rice. Sometimes, when the meal was not good, the woman would say nothing, and the son and daughter-in-law would keep their tongues wagging. Mother said nothing, and listened to all kinds of accusations. And eat rice, mother always feel not enough to eat, but no way, had to make do with.

I bought my mother 20 yuan of traffic so that she had time to read WeChat and kill time. She always abandon money, dislike mobile phone will not use, dislike at every turn in arrears, let me not to buy next month.

Mother called, said to go to the bank to put the money earned in the 3 months, password do not know right, save have 10 thousand. She didn’t give up a penny to spend, even a piece of anti-inflamation medicine is reluctant to buy.

My mother said, “It is my pleasure to earn some money and fill your new room with some furniture. When I see it, it is also my wish. I have nothing else to do.”

When I heard that, my eyes got wet.

I often thought that my hard-working, honest mother, who had suffered from insomnia for years and had incurable headaches, was giving me money at the cost of her life. My mother had the tremendous suffering and resilience of her generation. She is like a lamp, for his son’s light, all night long to boil their own blood, sooner or later will one day for me to boil dry boil, and then out.

Then I’ll be motherless. I am a cruel executioner, with the body of 30 years old, but also for her mother for a leisure, I feel ashamed. The poor mother under the sun, for the sake of their children, paid everything, endured everything, endured everything. The children under the sun, are drinking the mother’s blood of the Wolf, so cruel.

In this family, my mother worked for almost nine months. During the nine months she had been indoors, she had been out only three or five times. Usually people are not allowed to go out. When she went there, she wore a shirt. In December, it was cold and there was no chance to buy a cotton-padded coat. The woman did not like it, so she gave her mother one of her old clothes. I said to her online to buy a, send the past, mother was afraid of money, and afraid to send to pick up inconvenient, has been refused.

At the end of December, my cousin got married and I bought my mother a hard bed. From Tianjin to Xi ‘an, and then transfer from Xi ‘an to Tianshui. For so many years, my mother always took a hard seat no matter she went out or came back home for more than ten hours. This is her first time to take a sleeper.

My mother came back with nearly 30,000 yuan. When I got home, I left thousands of yuan to go home for the Spring Festival. I gave the rest to me and said, “Please use the money to buy curtains for yourself. This is my little wish.”

My mother looked back and forth in my new room, laughing that the color of the sofa was too dark and everything was fine. Mother was very happy. Mother still had on her feet the old sandals she had worn when she left.

Afterword.

The mother is 52 years old and is a sheep. The old men on our side often say that the sheep have a hard life. I don’t know.

Whenever I see people of my mother’s age going to the shopping mall, or dancing in the square, or walking their dogs by the river, I think of my mother. She walked out of the loess soil, did not take care of the dust on her shoulders, and went to work in distant Tianjin for me with a sick body.

As soon as she went out, on and off for many years, we did not know what she had gone through outside, or how she had passed the long years in a strange environment. These two years, watching my mother grow old, it is really sad.

I think that most mothers in the world, especially rural mothers, for the sake of their children, are like my mother, they are a group of people unknown to the public, but also bear the deepest suffering of a group of people. They have no complicated stories, just some trivial daily life and a selfless love for their children.