1
One day in August 2015, her 67-year-old sister-in-law got up early in the morning and asked her cousin to go to the corn field outside the village to collect ears of corn with her. Before he could finish the soup in the bowl, she went to the field first.
By the time my cousin got to the field after breakfast, she had shelled a big pile of corn ears. Seeing his cousin came, he kept doing his work and said, “This morning I finished peeling all the ears of corn. Good afternoon, I will go to help my daughter look after the twins’ granddaughters.”
They worked until one o ‘clock in the afternoon and loaded the cart with all the corn. On the way home, my cousin drove, and my sister-in-law sat on the side. The tricycle was stuck and put out the fire when passing through the main canal used for watering at ordinary times. My cousin started the car, but still did not rush it. The cousin in the third time to start the car forward, to the car after a hard push, the car is over the bar, but she did not follow the car.
He thought she was tired and wanted to have a rest, so he stopped his car and pulled her back. “Get up and go home to cook,” he said. “Don’t you mean to go to the city to see your granddaughter this afternoon?” She did not respond, bent to pull her, only to find that she had fainted. Horrified, my cousin called his second son and told him that your mother had fainted in the cornfield.
The second brother of my cousin’s family has been in Hainan and Guangdong for many years. At that time, he had a rest at home, put down the phone and drove his car to the ground in a hurry. He picked up his cousin’s wife and put her into the car, then he headed for Wen County People’s Hospital. May be after a few kilometers of road bumps, to the county of Wen chengguan, his wife woke up, asked the second where this is going? Heard dick said, “go to large hospital (county they called the people’s hospital of big hospital)”, his wife insisted that turn back and go to a hospital xiguan – she was afraid to spend money, the hospital doctors, technology is not as good as “big hospital”, but the cost is relatively low, the second son grew up listening to her words, and looked at his wife speaking, seem like back to normal, as she turned the car.
The heart brain doctor of that hospital is the distant relative that the wife turns a few road turn, say to the second eldest brother your mother wants to be in hospital observation, spent a night to go to work the second day, also did not observe what is the problem after all. After one o ‘clock in the afternoon, his wife fell into a coma again. The doctor said helplessly, “Hurry up and turn around, we can’t see now.”
Sister-in-law to jiao Zuo people’s hospital, immediately diagnosed as a brain tumor, need to drill cranium to extract blood immediately, reduce the squeeze of the brain nerve, to family members to sign. At ordinary times, cousin family events are the eldest son decision making, now others are not at home, cousin and second two “trouble fans” have no idea. The second brother to still in Hainan call to ask how to do, the eldest brother urgent not line: “return ask what li? Just sign it!”
The second brother helped the nurse push the watchwoman lying in the car to the operating room. While walking, he heard the watchwoman calling the eldest brother’s name and muttered, “If you don’t come back, they will really delay mom’s illness.”
A few hours later, the surgeon said the operation had been successful, but in the evening, news of the woman’s danger returned to the intensive care unit, and soon the surgeon was dropping the critical notice. After daybreak, the doctor seeks cousin father and son to say, the proposal is craniotomy, “just have an expert, come jiao to do craniotomy for a patient from Zhengzhou, is not to use this opportunity to do it again? You’ll have to pay an extra sum of money for a specialist to come in at ordinary times.” Worried about the second brother remembered yesterday’s criticism of him, immediately promised to do an operation.
Watch sister-in-law on the operating table, has been looking at his cousin and the second, and so out of the operating room, has been comatose.
The doctor from the beginning of three days can wake up, seven days can wake up, slowly became half a month later can wake up, after a month can wake up. But now, even two years later, she is still in a trance. Even when she opens her eyes, she still seems to be asleep.
Watch sister-in-law in Jiaozuo surgery after the third day, the eldest brother just hurried to arrive from Hainan, in the ward pointed to the second: “Wenxian from Zhengzhou is an hour, so serious illness in Wenxian delayed a whole day, to Jiaozuo’s journey is almost the same as to Zhengzhou, do you think water into the brain not to go to Zhengzhou? After a while he said: “The day I fell ill, I took your car and went to the ‘big hospital’. How are you? You’re putting too much faith in that stupid doctor, he’s keeping you up!”
“Mom was so afraid of spending money that she had to go to that hospital…”
“She said you’d go? You have the steering wheel in your hand!”
One side of the cousin to see the brothers play against each other, persuade, “don’t blame the second, your mother was pregnant with him when he mistreated him, not in his right mind.” Then, after a pause, he added, “I didn’t realize your mother was so ill.”
2
The watchwoman is always a tough person, sent to the hospital this thing is really can’t blame the second.
However, his cousin said his wife abused her second child when she was pregnant, starting in 1978. That year, my uncle and my cousin came together to help her get rid of the relationship, and brought her into the county cotton mill as a spinning wheel. This is a very worthy of showing off for the sister-in-law, a rural woman unexpectedly became a worker, is the envy of all peers.
The watchwoman who works steadfastly in the factory always wants to have a daughter even though she has already given birth to a eldest son. So, despite the strict family planning policy, she conceived her second child in April 1984.
This point in time is after his wife well prepared: in early pregnancy, she with long white cloth of the coils of the belly wrap up, good bluff others look not to come out, my cousin said, the second son is refers to the torture, such as the fetus when big belly up seven or eight month, just in time to catch the weather slowly cooling, she has wide with seasons wear snow job, stamping, not let outsiders see pregnant flaw.
A month and a half before the birth, the wife asked the leader for a long vacation and went back home to let the rural midwife deliver the baby in the old room where she lived.
But her wish to have a daughter failed, and she gave birth to a second son.
The director of the workshop where the sister-in-law was working was a beautiful woman who had an ambiguous relationship with the deputy director in charge of the workshop at that time. In private, several female workers were gossiping about the sister-in-law. As a result, once when they were flirting in the workshop, the sister-in-law heard them, and said to her face, “You two go out and say, don’t be disgusting.”
Later on a summer evening, on her way back to her home in the countryside, the sister-in-law unexpectedly saw the vice director of the factory riding a bicycle with the female director of the workshop heading west. Normally, people would rush to avoid this matter, but the sister-in-law said inappropriately: “Good, you two are together again, let me catch it? I must tell my wife!”
By “my sister-in-law” she means the vice director’s wife, whom she doesn’t even know.
Out of the mouth, the watchwoman back to work, said she secretly go home to give birth to a child of the wind has been spread to the director of the workshop where a grudge. On the fifth or seventh day, the director of the workshop led four women workers in close relationship in the workshop. During lunch and rest, they gathered around to put the watchwoman down, took off her blouse, and checked whether she had any milk. Women all know that if they can squeeze out milk, they must have given birth to a second child.
The result is not only milk, and out of a full bowl.
The director of the workshop took this bowl of milk, found the factory responsible for family planning leadership said that the sister-in-law had more than two children, asked to go to the sister-in-law home to investigate. Deputy factory director and a few departments of people to discuss good, immediately called on the factory in a few departments of four or five people, went straight to the sister-in-law in the rural home, indeed as expected to see sister-in-law’s mother-in-law, that is, my aunt, is taking care of a baby boy.
The director of the workshop pretended to admire the eldest brother to my aunt, “Thick eyebrows and big eyes, will grow up to be a senior official,” and then asked if this was her new child. She told the director of the workshop exactly when the second brother was born and how he had escaped the inspection. Finally, she told him in good earnest, “You dare not tell the people in the factory that you will be fired.”
A few days later, the factory announced that her sister-in-law would be dismissed and fined 3,000 yuan for “violating the national family planning policy by having more than one child.” At that time, a house with blue brick and tile in the countryside was worth more than 3,000 yuan. Knowing the severity of the family planning policy, the watchwoman’s wife could not afford to neglect her family for fear that her house would be torn down. She hastily collected the money and paid the fine, and then settled the matter.
Who have not voluntarily, of course, not only dedicated to the town to workshop director rioted in the home, also said that she and deputy director of adultery everywhere, workshop director quickly informed deputy director, deputy director with the safeguard section, police station together with the person in the past, said to his wife: “now you are feeding women, not detain you, if you continue to make trouble without a cause, you will be in detention.”
The watchwoman stopped.
But it was not until two years later that she ran into the shop manager in Goodwin Street, grabbed the broom from the cleaner and knocked the unsuspecting shop manager to the ground.
In the future, whenever there is something to do with the second brother, the wife will say sorry to the second brother — the pregnancy is bound up in the abdomen, which is the most regretful thing in her life.
3
Since her wedding day in the winter of 1968, many people have seen her style.
On the wedding night, the young people in the village went to make a scene. The new daughter-in-law is generally not against the marriage, but a cousin has a brother, take the lead to keep the cousin to light cigarettes, to her cousin and kiss, eat apple. After a while, the wife got angry and pushed her way through the crowd to my mother. “Give me your scarf,” she said.
My mother solution on the head of white gauze, one of the most fashionable ornaments of women – that era saw his wife put the fabric diagonal ten percent to form a band, then the string has been wearing a belt of pants on the nose, ensures that the pants with “double insurance” will not be long when they pull away in confusion, turn back to bridal chamber, said, “I want to see the elder brother!”
In a moment of tearing confusion, the sister-in-law grappled with the elder brother, and finally pushed him back to the ground, begging for mercy, while the younger brothers watched in amazement. The second day that elder brother saw her, hurriedly hide to walk, she looked at his back figure smile provocation say: “you don’t call me to call your elder brother?”
A few days later, the production team organized manpower to pour dung from each household toilet into the wheat fields. In the rural areas of Wenxian county, this work is called “carrying dung”. People have to carry two buckets full of excrement and send them to the fields one by one, just like carrying water. Recently, there have been more than one li of land from households to fields, and it is difficult to send several times due to poor physical strength. Therefore, this farm work is generally only qualified for young and strong men, and it is also the one with the highest score scored by production teams.
Watch sister-in-law just married to her husband’s home, also want to show to win a good reputation, regardless of cousin against also go to carry wool dung, carrying 50 to 60 catties of manure a trip to walk more than three miles. As it was, she was only going to choose the third time. As a result, on the way of the last trip, I ran into the brother of the troublesome couple again. Do you dare to challenge me to a contest as to who has taken many trips If you carry two more times today than I do, I’ll go into town tomorrow to buy a roast chicken dinner.”
“Must it come sometime?” His wife asked.
‘Fifteen times a day!
‘Are you serious?
“Men talk and pretend? Let the little brothers keep watch.”
Together carrying the dung of the little brothers began to heckle, so began the race. The elder brother, who could not bear any more, sat down by the roadside to rest. Although his wife was slower than him, she took her time. When the 15th journey was over, they thought she was going to rest. When people in the village began to “drink soup” (in northern Henan dialect for supper), the watchwoman said to her younger brother: “Look, this is the seventeenth time!” By the time her cousin came back, the elder brother was tired and had to go home.
The next day, that brother really from the county town back to the daokou roast chicken, please watch sister-in-law and a number of young brothers together. He ate while saying: “early know you this fierce, don’t bet, love dearly dead my this 3 dollars.”
This matter let cousin fame, also let the public respect her three points.
4
The second year after marriage, my cousin went to the county fertilizer factory temporary work, in the dormitory was infected with tuberculosis. In the cousin tried to cure, the brigade asked each family out of a labor, to participate in the “531” project battle at the southern foot of The Taihang Mountain.
At home, my cousin a male labor, because of an infectious disease could not participate, so at the end of 1969, his wife “for husband”, with the “Wen County brigade” to Jiyuan county, and hiking for several days, arrived at the most northern Python River Grand Canyon Nanzhuangling.
At first, she was assigned to work as a helper in the canteen of the drilling brigade, washing vegetables and cutting them for cooking. Later, there was a propaganda team to perform, the more the sister-in-law looked more and more feel in the canteen is not interesting — this is in line with her temper, she likes lively, but also has the strength, so he applied to the county captain to go to the first line.
The captain said, “Do you know what our first line is? To drill for rocks in caves!”
“You should not look down upon women. Chairman MAO said that women hold up half the sky. Without our half of the sky, can you succeed? I’ll go on the line and shoot rocks with a drill gun!”
The “38 experts” who carry half the sky
Battalion commander also wants to set up an advanced model, after asking instructions to his superior leadership, sister-in-law got his wish on the front line, reporting for duty that day, after receiving all the drilling workers’ equipment, sister-in-law immediately put on full work installed into the cave, and men like carrying drill gun, play cave.
Since the sister-in-law joined the team, the otherwise dull men have been extremely enthusiastic and have been praised by the higher authorities for several months.
Captain nature understand one of the secret, see him to set an example is ready to go out, he went to the engineering headquarters, invited the Beijing newspaper, Jiyuan radio station reporters to interview the sister-in-law, so that the “County brigade” and the “38 expert” reputation loud for a while.
In August of that year, the central leaders paid an inspection visit to Jiyuan, where they met with more than 50 advanced workers and “38 experts” in the construction of the 531 project. The watchwoman was listed among them, which was the most brilliant moment in her life.
In the spring of the following year, a medical team of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was set up on the construction site. It was said that the doctors were all experts in Beijing, who were specialized in doing physical examinations for migrant workers on the front line.
The doctor explained to her that it might be related to the dust she had eaten while digging in the tunnel. Sister-in-law did not take this seriously, thought, that what, is not to eat a few two rock powder, such as back to Wen County to eat a few more pig serum clear lung all right.
A few days later, however, she was unexpectedly summoned from the construction site by a deputy commander-in-chief to her office to talk. The doctor said that the wife may get lung silicon disease, although it is a chronic disease, but also deadly disease, is not suitable to continue to work in the site, it is best to leave the site home recuperation.
Deputy commander accepted the doctor’s advice, said to the sister-in-law, for the sake of her health, the organization decided to let her go back to the hometown of Wen County to recuperate the body, but also afraid of her mental pressure, like praise to coaxed her, such as the body is well, will come back to continue to make contributions. Then let the sister-in-law to the financial department to get more than 100 yuan, said to give her subsidies.
The wife just went back to Wen County. At that time, the leadership also specially in Nanzhuang Ling to find a free ride for his wife, all the way bumps out of the gully, sent her back.
5
At the end of 1972, her gradually improving health gave birth to her first child. When the eldest brother was born, the countryside was still cutting off its capitalist tail and living a tight life.
In order to earn more money to support the family, my cousin secretly followed an old man in the village, went to qinyang county to learn carpentry, mainly to learn how to make coffins. At that time, the village people will be decades long, wooden hard elm locust tree planed, dried, invited carpenters to the home for the old man’s coffin, commonly known as “xi coffin”.
My cousin and my master are in the mountain village of Taihang Mountain, put the tree body on the set of the wooden frame, mark the width and draw the ink line, one man stands on the top of the four or five meters high bracket, as the leader, the other man stands on the ground, is to meet, one up and one down to pull the saw, cut the log into the coffin board. This work is a test of skill and physical strength, cousin always can not be very accurate grasp, often scolded by the master.
After some time, her elder brother, who was half a year old, and her cousin were standing on the shelf all day, pulling the wood all over the place. Finally, one day, she couldn’t help saying, “You take a rest, I will try it.” As a result, the sister-in-law pulled down a pole through the tree, and each plank was straight and straight. After that, the sister-in-law wrapped up the saw work to pull up the coffin. The master counted the money by the piece, with cousin’s share, the husband and wife also had a good income in a month, and the life was a little better.
Not widen saw, his wife took the child, put the tea side to my cousin and master, listen and see what they do, they say, hear, time grows, the dozen coffin that a program is to remember, sometimes warrants have the worry, his wife a carpenter’s bench, get on board shop, pushing up the plane, roll up the wooden flower like river waves, played mortise and fit, than my cousin doing agile, let the teacher couldn’t help praising her.
The carpentry work was originally two people in the work, through the occasional performance of the sister-in-law, became a master three, they have two or three years outside to do dozen furniture to make coffin, the master really can not move, the two returned to the county home.
After returning to Wenxian, the watchwoman and her cousin began to work as carpenters in their own small yard. They have been doing the coffin business, which is needed by everyone, partly in public and partly in secret.
For more than a dozen miles around, it was known that the watchwoman was a famous carpenter in the village, and that the coffin she made was first-rate. When people went to the village to buy a coffin, they asked where the carpenter woman lived. No one ever asked her cousin’s name. When she received them, she asked whether they were male or female, and then carried out the coffin with a slight change in size and a completely different color — this is the local custom, and it is the same with the coffin. If the woman used it, she would lie down and try to sleep, so that the buyer could see how lenient it was, “there is no injustice in sleeping in it”; If a man uses it, she asks his cousin to lie down in it and try to sleep.
After many years of rural cremation reform, cremation gradually into the hearts of the people, the couple completely give up this business, dedicated to serving the land.
6
It is said that the character decides the fate. The striking personality of the sister-in-law does make her famous in the village these years, but it also inevitably foreshadows the future life.
During the coffin business in his hometown, Wen County daxing water conservancy, excavation river, and his wife went to work on the beach.
Once the watchwoman came home from the beach. When she got home, the eldest brother was crying. She asked her son what was wrong. The eldest brother said, he is going to pull the production team warehouse to scrape yancao grandma to the beach to look for his mother, grandma did not have time to take him to go, he cried in the side, crying even next to the old lady working are tired. When grandma got tired of him, she slapped him in the head, and said, “Shut up!”
Watch sister-in-law listened to a moment of anger, took the eldest brother to ask her mother-in-law, said why you hit him, he so small can through you play? The mother-in-law at first just whispered, “This child is causing death, and I gently…” “, but before her mother-in-law finished the sentence, her sister-in-law began to swing a slap at her.
The mother-in-law immediately grabbed her sister-in-law’s clothes and did not let go. The watchwife was so angry that she did not control her emotions, but she did not expect that a group of old ladies beside her would say, “Grandma teach your grandson a lesson. When you become a mother, you should do it with your mother-in-law. Then your mother-in-law will give you a look at your children?” Another said: ‘No matter how unreasonable your mother-in-law is, being a daughter-in-law means you are doing 10,000 things wrong.’ Another woman, taking advantage of the chaos, called the director of the village women who lived not far away to reason, just want to make things bigger, to defeat the pleasure of the sister-in-law.
Of course, the women’s director could do nothing but criticize his wife.
It was because of this irreconcilable family conflict that my cousin and uncle tried everything they could to get their cousin into the factory and resolve the contradiction between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law at home. Later, my cousin also had the experience of getting married with the director of the workshop when she was in the factory.
Thrown out of the mill, the wife don’t angry, at rest after a period of time ago, and my cousin take turns riding a bicycle, strapped to a rack truck, take the kettle dry food, to go to the nearby tree production in a dozen places, buy suits to do a coffin pagoda tree cypress, cut down the branches of the tree code in the car shelf, cousin driving shaft straightly, who have put a pull from the body of the rope on the shoulder, walking back to the county, in the home after air coffins.
“God will not starve blind birds.” She was always comforting herself.
In any case, a watchwoman’s word carries weight at home, even in the whole family.
Cousin is the eldest son of aunt home, home brother 3 people very early cent home, each lead each. The cousin’s second brother had been trying to have a son for a long time, but when he gave birth to his second child in violation of the family planning policy, he was still a girl. So the couple decided to give the two girls away without telling anyone in the family about it.
A few days later, after the sister-in-law heard the news, insisted on the door to the two younger brother couple scolded a dog head spray blood, asked who gave it to, the second younger brother daughter-in-law cried, is a man in The Village of Sangpo County, the people in the arms of the child before leaving two hundred dollars, said to her to mend the body.
The watchwoman rode her bicycle all night, ran to The Village of Sangpo in Meng County, and found the man, the man saw her in a threatening manner, did not get back the girl does not give up appearance, afraid of the accused hair “trafficked people”, he hurriedly turned east and west around the river and went to the nearby village to find the child.
That afternoon, after taking the baby to her bosom, the wife dropped 200 yuan, said, “You don’t do such a wicked thing in the future,” and went straight home, determined to raise the girl by herself, who was later to be the twin Cui that the wife was still thinking about visiting before her brain tumor attack.
7
Xu is the old age, the elderly sister-in-law is slowly on the body. Before 2010, she often felt dizzy and weak, and her legs were sometimes inexplicably weak. Once wen County hospital went to the countryside to the village for free medical treatment for farmers, her sister-in-law took a blood pressure, high pressure 210 low pressure 150 more. The doctor suggested to go to the hospital immediately, the sister-in-law said on hearing the doctor mystifies. The second brother knew the consequences of such High blood pressure and took her directly to the hospital, where she stayed for several days before her blood pressure came down.
When her sister-in-law heard that hypertension is to take medicine for life, which has a great impact on her kidney, she felt some resistance. Seven pills per box cost more than ten yuan, and she felt distressed, so sometimes she took it and sometimes she did not.
Her in-laws said a prescription to drink mulberry tea to treat high blood pressure, “Isn’t there a mulberry tree in your backyard? When the leaves are taken off and dried, they make tea every day instead of medicine.” So she bought an oversized plastic water cup and put a lot of mulberry leaves in it at one time. She went to play mahjong and work in the field. She never left her body without tea.
In the fall of 2010, the county hospital came to the village again for a free consultation. She went to ask the doctor to take her blood pressure. The result was still high, but somewhat better than before. The wife took the mulberry tea as the cause and continued to drink a lot — her subsequent brain tumor may have been largely linked to high blood pressure.
Now, she has been lying in bed for more than two years, staring at this meaningless world with vacant eyes. My cousin broke the food into liquid every day, and fed her mouth after mouth, hoping to wake her up.
It was a life of being competitive and maverick, and in the end it was the same.
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