Editor’s Note
The damage that earthquakes bring to those who experience them is not just physical and material. Psychologists say that after a serious disaster, survivors are more likely to feel a strong sense of guilt or guilt: they hate themselves for not being able to save their families, for being luckier than others, for not being the one who died. The words “I’m sorry” and “I don’t deserve it” are often on their lips. These are three stories about parents who lost their lives to the earthquake, and they are the epitome of the post-earthquake group of psychologically guilty people.
I can’t take it anymore
Those were eyes that were hard to see in everyday life, large cloudy yellow masses joined with black eyes covered with blood. The eyes were red and swollen, the eyelashes were permanently stuck together by tears, the bags were blue and swollen, and the lips were chapped. The voice that came out had become dark, dull, coarse and discontinuous, like the moaning of a seriously ill person on his deathbed.
This is what Zhang Suqiong looked like on the night of May 14, 2008, 11 hours after her daughter’s body was found. Her daughter was lying in her arms, covered in dust. Zhang Suqiong took a wet wipe and kissed there for every piece of skin she wiped clean. She gently stroked her daughter’s hair, setting up the pink HelloKitty hairpin above.
She stifled a whimper, her body was trembling, a “I’m sorry”, said a fragmented.
When the earthquake occurred, Zhang Suqiong was playing mahjong. Suddenly the table and chairs began to shake violently, and the white woven lamp overhead also swung, illuminating the mahjong table with a light and a dark.
“Earthquake!” Zhang Suqiong heard others shouting, immediately jumped up from the seat and began to run outside. The door of the mahjong hall is small, blocking people from getting out, but the ceiling is cracking at a rate visible to the naked eye. Zhang Suqiong jumped out of the window instead, only to find later that her arm was cut by a 10-centimeter-long slit by glass fragments.
When she jumped out, the roof of the market had collapsed, 10 meters high steel brackets and tin roof smashed down and covered almost all of the vendors selling inside, surrounded by smoke and screaming. Zhang Suqiong did not dare to stay or think about it, she climbed on hands and knees to the blue tin roof. The ground was still shaking, and the smooth surface of the tin made it impossible for Zhang Suqiong to move. She kept slipping off it and jumping on it again and again. “The sound of those bricks falling on my back, I could hear it so clearly.”
Finally, the ground stopped shaking, Zhang Suqiong hurriedly crawled down the tin, and the loud sound of someone hitting the tin with their hands kept coming from underneath her as she crept across a distance as wide as half a soccer field. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she ran wildly in the direction of the school.
There were several people like her on the road. Although the masonry underfoot may collapse at any time, the hand-supported prefabricated panels may break at any time, but none of them stopped. They knew very well what would happen if they were any later – on the way here, the mountain behind the school had already started to collapse.
It had to be quicker, and quicker.
When Zhang Suqiong ran to the school, the building was still collapsing. Zhang Suqiong could not tell the location of her daughter’s classroom and turned around twice in despair in front of the rubble. Then a parent pulled, “My doll is underneath, you help me move rocks, move rocks ah!”
Zhang Suqiong followed that parent planed for more than 10 minutes before the doll was rescued. “A first-grade girl doll, I was thinking, a first-grade doll so small can run out, then my girl third grade can certainly also run out.” She relied on such thoughts and spent the day plowing through the rubble.
The next morning, she was forcibly taken by the PLA to a temporary settlement to rest, by then her fingers were already bloody, the nails of her four fingers were missing, revealing scarlet flesh. In this medical site, there were constantly parents rushing in with their children covered in blood, “the elementary school was basically all finished, several classes a doll did not run out”, Zhang Suqiong heard this, then ripped off the needles and rushed towards the school. She just walked out the door and was stopped by soldiers who told her to continue the infusion.
Zhang Suqiong’s husband, Yang Fuyun, came back in the evening and still couldn’t find his daughter. After resting for four hours, Yang Fuyun went to school again. By this time, more than 30 hours had passed since the earthquake.
After the infusion, Zhang Suqiong went straight to the school, where Yang Fuyun was working with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to plow through the rubble. No matter what Zhang Suqiong said, the PLA wouldn’t let her in. She had to stand by the rubble and watch as people carried stretchers down from the rubble and laid the bodies of the children aside to be claimed.
Zhang Suqiong didn’t dare to look at the row of bodies until someone whispered in her ear, “Your doll is being carried out, go check it out.” All the children’s faces were covered with cloth at the time, and she recognized her daughter from the hairpin she was wearing on her head.
“A pink hairpin with a rhinestone-encrusted Hello Kitty on it, that was her favorite, I didn’t want to buy it for her at the time, and she cried.”
After finding their daughter, the couple decided to take her back home.
The old house also collapsed, but in the family of the elderly are fine. Four people crowded inside a tent, sometimes discussing how to build a house later how to make money, and sometimes silent. Everyone is hiding from the family tears, sometimes see other people crying, and will say, “what are you crying for, and useless”.
“You still cry the same, you think I don’t know?”
On the day the village issued the compensation, no one in the family went to get it, “My woman is a life, what is the use of taking money? Life with money for it?” Yang Fuyun said he was angry and smashed the bowl he was eating into the ground.
Later, the village chief personally sent the money, telling them to think about it, “it’s better than nothing”. Yang Fuyun was still angry and told the village chief to get lost. The pile of money was put on Yang Fuyun’s bed and kicked to the ground when he was sleeping at night.
The next morning, Zhang Suqiong picked up the pile of money, “Come on, let’s go to our daughter’s grave”.
At her daughter’s grave, they burned the 100,000 yuan to her daughter one by one, for a whole morning. People in the village scolded the couple for being “crazy”, but Yang Fuyun said it was his daughter’s money and no one wanted to use it.
The villagers advised them to have another one, but Zhang Suqiong did not want to, “too painful, too painful to give birth to a doll, when I gave birth to my woman, so painful that I was dying.
“She just can’t forget the last one, I know, I can’t forget either.” Although Yang Fuyun has never talked to his wife about having a child, but Yang Fuyun wants a child, the village people can see, Zhang Suqiong can also see. As long as someone in the village had a child, in the day of holding home, Yang Fuyun have to go around to people’s homes, just look, and not hold.
Some of the women who lost their children in the earthquake and now have children, will hold the child to find Zhang Suqiong, the child into her arms a push: “Look good, you have a new one is also so good. You see your man wants a doll so badly that he can’t stand it, and you still don’t give birth to one.”
Zhang Suqiong looked at the child in her arms, neither hugging nor not hugging, the child’s hand crossed Zhang Suqiong’s face, Zhang Suqiong suddenly burst into tears. The village people were frightened, did not know how to persuade, only said, “Think about it yourself.
“512” anniversary day, Yang Fuyun couple did not go to their daughter’s grave, but went to his daughter’s school. Zhang Suqiong bought a set of Barbie dolls, a hairpin, a pink dress and an ice cream. She said her daughter wanted a full set of Barbie dolls before she was born, but she was too expensive, did not buy, this time burned and sent to her, she can play well over there.
On the way back, Zhang Suqiong said to Yang Fuyun: “You earn more money, enough money we will move to Chengdu, Chengdu is all plain, the earthquake will not have mountains and then bury the school.”
A year or so later, the couple rented a 70-square-meter house in the suburbs of Chengdu, and Zhang Suqiong began to prepare for pregnancy. Yang Fuyun often away from home, he used the post-earthquake preferential loan policy to buy a small truck, used to transport tea. He is working alone, do more to earn more, a trip of 5 hours, he had to run 3 trips a day, often tired to go home and fall asleep.
The year his son was born, Yang Fuyun in Chengdu down payment for a 60-square-meter house. At that time Yang Fuyun was outside the delivery room, the nurse held a child out smiling and asked him: “Do you want a son or a woman?”
Yang Fuyun said, “A girl.”
The nurse teased him, “Then I’ll dump this one in my arms.”
Yang Fuyun listened and said, “Son too, son too.”
Yang Fuyun said he actually wanted a daughter, “A daughter is like my last daughter reincarnated, that means she did not forget her mother and father, that means our family is reunited again.”
Knowing that Zhang Suqiong had a child, the family brought a pair of long-life locks from the village – every family that lost a child in the earthquake will have such a long-life lock after the birth of a new child. A total of 31 were built in the village, representing the 31 children lost in the earthquake in this village. The village leaders took these long-life locks to the mountains of Beichuan and prayed to a Qiang shaman – wearing this long-life lock, the child will be safe and sound for life and will not suffer from great hardships.
After having a child, Yang Fuyun will spare one day a week to spend time with the child, Zhang Suqiong also rarely play mahjong, “the doll into your belly is to pity you, he should be doubly good to him after the birth”.
They put their daughter’s photo in a prominent place in the living room, visible as soon as you enter. Every night, Yang Fuyun holds her son and squats in front of the photo, “This is your sister, remember your sister”.
Every year, when they take their son back home to visit his daughter’s grave, they still don’t burn paper money. Yang Fuyun said, “I burned a year’s living expenses for her, as if she was going away to study, so that she will always be alive in our hearts.”
This year, their son is 6 years old and in the first grade. Zhang Suqiong transports her child to school every day. When she is with her child, her eyes always follow him. When she goes out to eat, she can’t see anyone for 10 minutes and looks all over the restaurant. Others say she is too sensitive, and she whispers, “I can’t take it again.”
After my son left, I didn’t deserve to cry
On the very night that Zhang Suqiong and his wife took their daughter back home, Li Guoming sat under a street lamp outside the Jiuzhou Stadium in Mianyang, covered in alcohol. His head was bruised, his eyes were red, and his hand was shaking from the bottle – he had watched his 16-year-old son die in front of him.
After the earthquake, it took Li Guoming only seven minutes to run to the school and find his son. At that time, half of his son’s body was crushed under the rubble, waist was two prefabricated plate dead stuck. A few men who ran to help roughly look at the situation, said it is impossible to move away by human power, only two thigh-thick stakes to that gap top open a little, so that the son comfortable.
At that time, the son was in good shape, said, “except for a little numbness in the waist, the body does not hurt at all. He wanted to lie in front of the rubble and keep watch over his son, but his son told him to hurry up and save the others. Before leaving, Li Guoming was relieved to find a few stones, a few sticks to the gap support column, his son also laughed at him “fuss”.
In Li Guoming just carried an injured girl out of school, aftershocks came. Li Guoming once again heard the boom of the building collapse, he drew his legs and ran in the direction of his son. But by then the gap had collapsed, and only half of his son’s face could be seen clearly. He lay on the rubble and shouted his son’s name, shouting his voice broke before he heard a response, and his son said, now “his back hurts a lot”.
Li Guoming told his son to wait, and began to frantically plan the masonry on the rubble, while planing while talking to his son, at first he could hear a few faint responses, to the back can not hear any sound. Li Guoming worked like crazy, and soon his fingers became bloody, but could no longer move the two prefabricated panels pressed against his son’s body even a millimeter.
Finally, he could only put his head on top and cry.
Until now, Li Guoming could not forgive himself, “I did not want to restore peace and did not deserve a respite from the pain”. Li Guoming’s wife felt that he could not be blamed, “God wants to take away my doll’s life, what can people do?” She asked herself, “There is nothing I can do.”
Li Guoming and his wife are no longer able to have a child, and the couple does not want to adopt. After the earthquake, the government gave Li and his family a 120-square-meter house, and the couple decorated the new house beautifully, leaving a room for their son, decorated exactly the same as before. But the two of them rarely stay in the house, “space, so big house on his mother and I two people live, go back to look at me I look at you, do not know what to say.
The year of the earthquake, his son was in his third year of high school, his grades were moderately high, and his class teacher said he belonged to the kind of student who could sprint to the first line. Li Guoming also has high hopes for his son, hoping that he can become the first college student in the Li family, and has even booked a banquet in a restaurant to celebrate his son’s college entrance. He saved the money for his son’s college education early on, and now the money has to be used for the couple’s pension.
After his son went to high school, he rarely took pictures, leaving few photos at home. Later, Li Guoming could only go to the school to find his son’s textbooks, test papers, school bags, cleaned up and placed on the desk in his bedroom.
Li Guoming turned over a set of his son’s 2007 language exam question papers many times, the essay topic is “one step and a lifetime”, his son wrote in the end: “Life is unknown to everyone, but as long as you take every step from now on, you will be able to get out of A piece of heaven and earth!” Li Guoming read this article by heart.
“If this article is taken to the college entrance examination, it will definitely get full marks? It’s a pity, it’s a pity.” He said while shaking his head.
When he heard that the 2008 essay topic was “strong”, he thought for a moment and smiled, “I should be the one to write it, my son is so good at writing essays, I am his father, I am not bad either. Besides, strong is used to describe me.” He wrote down the word “strong” on the paper, then took a puff of cigarette, poked and prodded the paper with the tip of his pen, and stopped several times, and finally threw the pen away, “Oh, I can’t write it, I don’t have my son’s ability.”
His wife squeezed him: “How can you write an essay? You can’t even recognize a few words.”
“Then you write it! You may not be able to write again?” Li Guoming said back.
His wife deflated, “I don’t want to go crazy like you.”
“You’re the one who’s crazy.”
Before the earthquake, Li Guoming and his wife opened a supermarket not far from the high school. He was so tall that he could carry two pieces of beer in one hand without even taking a break to walk a mile. On weekends, his son would help out in the store, but Li said, “I don’t want him to help me, he should go study.” But his son didn’t listen to him every time and remained in the store.
After Li finished this matter, he paused for a long time and sighed. “It’s a pity, such a good son, it’s my inability to save him.” After a while he added, “I clearly saw him there at the time, how to say no more ……”
Li Guoming said, in fact, he does not want to talk about his son again, but each time, the words are running to the mouth themselves, “I am now just restrained, do not think about it again, because every time I think about it, I will become ……” after a long, long silence. “It’s like this.” Li Guoming said.
Li Guoming’s wife said that before the earthquake, his son lived in school, only she and her husband two people at home, but also often silent, at that time never felt anything, but since his son left, this silence has become very uncomfortable: “boring, just feel too quiet, so quiet that I can not sleep. Before the earthquake his father was still snoring in his sleep at night, but now he doesn’t snore in his sleep either. One night, I turned over and saw that his eyes were open, so I realized that he couldn’t sleep either.”
Both husband and wife are suffering from this disaster in their own way. Friends often advise them to think about it, but the couple gets a little angry every time they hear it. Li Guoming said, “My son is now buried in the earth, I am the old man is still alive and well here, you say I have the right to think so?” Li Guoming rarely drops tears, “I don’t deserve to cry.”
After the earthquake, Li Guoming did not open a supermarket, but a small store. The store is very haphazardly arranged, even the shelves are not, it is two wooden boards put together, the above randomly placed some supplies, someone to buy things he does not often greet.
So open store to earn little money, but Li Guoming do not care, “I do not have a doll to pay, his mother and I two people do not use a lot of money”.
Throughout the year, the couple will only return to the old Beichuan County on their son’s birthday, to burn paper to his son, they said it was to his son’s “birthday”, not to “go to the grave”. Every time they go, they will sit there for a long time, guessing what their son will do at this age. When they went to burn paper this year, Li Guoming said, “It’s been 10 years, you’re 27 years old.”
His wife said next to him, “I’m sure you’ll get married this year, you made a new girlfriend last year, if you don’t get married this year I’ll push hard.”
“What do you know about women? Men have to do well in their careers first.”
“I don’t care to argue with you, people are a lot of 27-year-old people have given birth to dolls.”
“My son, which need to compare with others? My son is so well qualified, still afraid of not getting a daughter-in-law?”
“Yes, too.”
Don’t be my woman in the next life, I don’t deserve to be your old man
On Li Guoming’s way back to the new Beichuan County after burning the paper, he would pass through a town called Ringing Drum.
Before the earthquake, this is a low bungalow, after the earthquake by the government funding, most of them are built with Qiang characteristics of small buildings, the former bungalow can only be seen in the edge of the town sporadically a few – the owner of these houses either in the earthquake was killed, or after the earthquake moved away.
The car from the old Beichuan county town into the jurisdiction of the ring drum town, soon there will be a bungalow, the outer layer of blue tin surrounded by a fence, the fence has a flock of chickens and ducks, a dog and an orange tree that has not borne fruit for several years, the fence in front of a small area of cultivated land, planted with corn, lettuce and cabbage – all these belong to a 67-year-old man named Zhu Shengcai.
Silence is the norm here. Except for a few “hey, hey” calls when Zhu Shengcai drives the chickens and ducks, few others can be heard. Every morning at 7 a.m., Zhu Sheng gets up to eat, then feeds the chickens and ducks, goes to work, comes home at noon to eat, takes a one-hour nap, continues to work in the field until late afternoon, eats dinner, feeds the chickens and ducks, then goes to bed.
His day always seems to be very busy, as if he has endless work to do. When I went to his field, he was dismantling the bamboo fence that took several hours to weave yesterday, and in a few days, the dismantled bamboo fence was woven again and inserted in the soil.
After all these years, Zhu Shengcai’s feelings for his wife and daughter are still bare.
Next life you do not want to be my child, I do not deserve
If there is no earthquake, the daughter will be married in June ten years ago, the object in the government work, Zhu Shengcai is very satisfied with this son-in-law. the afternoon of May 12, Zhu Shengcai’s wife after dinner, wake up nap up to go to Beichuan County – afternoon she wants to accompany her daughter to buy clothes, and the road to walk 3 hours, walk to the county Just in time to meet his daughter from work.
Zhu Shengcai was working on the slope when the earthquake struck, and he was thrown off the ridge and into a small pond. By the time he got up, the town was in chaos, with screaming crowds everywhere. As soon as he ran down the slope, he saw a man stuck in an overturned car. Zhu Shengcai tore that person out of the car, ran to the town and saved several people.
That night, Zhu Shengcai called his daughter, did not get through, so he went home again, and did not see his wife back. He waited for the whole night on the road leading to Beichuan County.
The next day just after dawn, Zhu Shengcai along the road to the county, “the road is full of people, everyone is crying, some people are covered with blood, the road is also full of soldiers”.
After entering the county, Zhu Shengcai first went to his daughter’s unit, a ruin, and he looked to go to his daughter’s home, or a ruin. Zhu Shengcai all the temporary relief medical points in the county, temporary resettlement sites are looking for a circle, but also did not find his wife and daughter.
He pulled a man on the street and asked, “Do you know where the oil company people have gone?” The man told him to go to Renjiaping to find, “the oil company’s people are all there”. Zhu Shengcai ran to Renjiaping, densely packed with people, looking for half a day to find a canopy, with a watercolor pen written on the paper “oil company”.
Zhu Shengcai asked the person sitting inside: “Do you know where Zhu Xia has gone?” The person heard, a little anxious: “Oh no, master, Zhu Xia yesterday in the city meeting, until today, into the city meeting a person did not see.”
Zhu Shengcai listened to also anxious: “What the hell are you talking about?”
Zhu Shengcai and rushed into the county, in the daughter’s meeting place to find a circle, no one.
And that night, a person who came from the ring drum found Zhu Shengcai: “Your wife did not get, you quickly go back to see ha.” Zhu Shengcai rushed back to the ring drum overnight, his wife’s body is laid out on the road in front of his house. Someone told him that his wife was found in the river ditch next to the town of ring drum, should be thrown into the river ditch when the earthquake, and was hit by the falling rocks on the mountain.
Zhu Shengcai lifted the cloth covering his wife’s face and sat next to her to watch her. After a long time, only to notice that the wife put a blue pocket around, Zhu Shengcai took over to open, which is the wife to the daughter with two pieces of bacon, yesterday before leaving specially cooked into the bag, “so that Xia women can directly pick up and eat”.
Zhu Shengcai asked friends to help watch his wife, carrying the pocket went to Mianyang – the town said this is already the third day, the county inside the rescued wounded have all been sent to Mianyang, perhaps there is his daughter.
Zhu Shengcai posted in Mianyang Jiuzhou gymnasium casualty list all searched, only to find an earthquake also in the city meeting people. The man had bandages on his legs and was lying on a marching bed receiving fluids. He said that he was buried under the rubble, Zhu Xia was sitting two rows behind him, the earthquake came when the conference room collapsed, he fainted at that time, and he woke up and could not see anything, he shouted in the rubble, and promised that there was no Zhu Xia inside the people.
Zhu Shengcai and went to the list of victims to find, but also did not find the name of his daughter. The daughter’s colleagues reassured him, “that your daughter must be fine, the people inside the conference room whether dead or alive were carried out. Zhu Sheng only then a little peace of mind, he took a ride back to the drum, arrange for his wife’s afterlife.
Two days later, Zhu Sheng again ran to the Jiuzhou stadium to look through the updated casualty list, or did not find his daughter’s name. He was a little panicked, found a staff member to ask, the staff said, and then go to the information outside the county of Beichuan to find the public point, all the people out of Beichuan County, whether dead or alive, will be registered there.
“If you haven’t found it there, your daughter is probably missing – the ones who were buried inside the rubble and not found.” Finally, the staff said.
Back in Beichuan County, Zhu Shengcai stood at the information display and spent the afternoon crossing the names printed on it one by one with his fingers, although his fingertips had been stained black with ink, but still could not find “Zhu Xia”.
Later in the month, Zhu Shengcai ran through all the hospitals in Mianyang. During this time, he learned that his son-in-law was also killed, the two elderly in-laws also came to the drum to see him, but Zhu Shengcai told them not to come in the future, asked him why, he shook his head and said only two words: “Why bother”.
Later, the government allocated Zhu Shengcai a pension for the two people killed, the money has been enough to build a house, but Zhu Shengcai but all the money in the bank. Asked him, “What do you save the money for?” He said, “I don’t know.”
After the earthquake, the road was rebuilt, and now it only takes two hours to walk from the ring drum to the old county town of Beichuan. Because there is no grave, Zhu Shengcai every time is walking to the “mass grave” built in the center of Beichuan County to burn paper for his daughter. “The doll is too sinful, people died without even a grave, like what words”.
Every time he burned paper, he would first apologize to his daughter: “Xia woman, I’m sorry, I did not make a difference, even you did not find. In the next life you should not be my woman again, I do not deserve to be your old man.”
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