□ Zhou Honghua

The mother is getting old, her ears are deaf, her thinking is obviously "confused" and forgetful, and she spends most of her time lying on the kang.

When I went home to visit, my mother barely stood up on her arms, her eyes staring blankly at me. I hurriedly hugged her and said, "Mother, I see you're here." Mother suddenly laughed and said, "It's the root that has been harvested, is your father okay?" I was stunned to realize that my mother thought of me as my uncle's cousin. I hurriedly waved my hand and said loudly, "Mother, it's me, the second child." However, my mother couldn't hear my voice at all, and after a while, she probably understood my gesture and said, "It's not the root harvest, it's the autumn harvest (my uncle's second cousin), right?"

I felt a sour feeling in my heart, and my mother didn't even recognize me.

I whispered my name in her ear and gestured anxiously, but my mother's eyes suddenly darkened when she said the names of several other people and I denied them, and she muttered, "Who are you?" I can't see who you are," and lay down again.

Hearing my mother's words, I clearly felt that I had been forgotten by my mother - "cleared". Looking at my mother's gray hair, I couldn't stop crying.

　　八十多歲的母親明顯衰老了,行動蹣跚磕絆,再也看不到她昔日步履輕捷、忙裡忙外的身影。母親是十分勤勞的。上世紀60年代,父親外出闖蕩,是母親在家中照顧祖母和幼小的兒女們,度過了那段年月。後來,為了改變生活,過上好一點的日子,家中開始飼養豬、羊、家兔,每天在參加完生產隊的正常勞動后,疲憊的母親還要淘豬食、割羊草、挖野菜……做其他人家沒有的事務。為家中八九口人準備一日三餐更是母親的專職。那時還沒有機器磨坊,村中只有一個大石碾子,家家戶戶都要用石碾子碾小米、磨地瓜面,非常忙碌,往往要排隊等候到深更半夜。母親就是在月落日升間,推動笨重的石碾,為家人做著飯食。長期的生產勞作和繁重的家務載荷,壓垮了母親的身體,剛步入六十歲,她的腰已彎曲成了九十度。後來,我們兄弟姊妹多次勸父母,要麼隨我們來城裡居住,要麼停止勞作在村裡頤養天年,然而,母親依然沒有停下勞作的腳步,和父親一起開荒種地、養殖家畜、打理菜園,直至那年秋天出現阿爾茨海默病的癥狀,記憶力嚴重衰退,行動遲滯,躺倒在了炕上。

Sometimes when I go back to the village, I meet old people who are the same age as my mother but have a strong body and walk freely, and I feel envious, how much I hope that my mother will have a healthy body and a sober old age. I once talked about this idea with a distant eldest brother in the village, and the eldest brother said: "My aunts were tired when they were young, and others are in good health because they were not so tired by my aunt when they were young!"

I remember a public service announcement about an elderly man eating out with his children, and he quietly grabbed a handful of dumplings and stuffed them into his pocket, saying that he would take them back to his son to eat. The old man also suffers from Alzheimer's disease, but in his heart, his son will always be his favorite, even when he has "cleared" his son and cannot recognize his child face-to-face.

(The author of this article is a member of the Shandong Provincial Writers Association)