By chance, I found her journal under a pile of needles and thread in the second drawer of my grandma’s bedside table.
This is a low-quality lined book bought from a vegetable market stall with a female star on the cover. It seems that it is both a diary and an excerpt.
From the front, my grandma usually copied it from the TV, the free magazines in the drugstore, and the books I had left at home, everything she thought was well written.
There are health care information such as “The Five Most Nutritious Fruits in Autumn and Winter”, “Inspirational Old Age” essays such as “The Older You Get Happier”, and “Ten Filial Sons of Filial Piety” Persuade Mom” is a practical article to teach people to deal with the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.
Grandma also excerpted a lot of famous quotes that look vulgar and don’t know the truth. She pretentiously names Chaplin, Shakespeare, O’Henry, and others, even though she may not even know who they are.
But if you flip the book from back to front, you will find another world with a grandma I never knew.
Grandma’s only photo when she was young was an ID photo taken by Ruihua at age 52
Image source: Deoxynucleotide
Grandma’s spiritual world is no longer a concern
Grandma’s name is Ruihua, she is 72 years old this year, and she graduated from primary school.
One day a few years ago, my grandmother suddenly told me that she was going to write an autobiography of her own. “What is there for grandma to write an autobiography?” This was the first reaction in my mind at the time.
Like many children brought up by the elderly in the family, my grandmother runs through all my memories so far, and can be said to be the heaviest and heaviest existence in my life. But since childhood, in my world, “grandma” is Ruihua’s eternal code name.
I have no curiosity about her other than “grandma”, and sometimes I can’t even remember her name. But in this diary, she is so alive.
The journal contains many letters that will never be sent. Some of the letters were written to her only son, my dad. Some were to persuade my dad not to worry about business matters; some were to blame his son for not quitting smoking and worrying about his health.
Occasionally, my father’s nickname appears in the letter: “Tuan Tuan, I remember that when you were a child, our mother and daughter lived every day talking and laughing, but now I see you frowning every day, I’m really helpless. !”
More letters were written to me. She wrote to me on my twentieth birthday wishing me a happy birthday.
She wrote, “Life is five 20 years at most,” and as if it was too late, she wrote down her different blessings for the remaining four 20 years of my life.
At the end of the letter, she wrote her ultimate wish to me: “I am delighted today twenty years ago, and today I am delighted twenty years later. Finally, I wish you: self-esteem and self-love, self-improvement Self-reliance.”
Grandma wishes me a happy 20th birthday in my diary
Image source: Deoxynucleotide
When I peeped this “birthday greeting”, I was already over twenty years old.
I try to remember but I can’t remember, did I call my grandma on my 20th birthday?
Grandma would never call me for fear of disturbing me. As a 20-year-old me, it is very likely that because I was immersed in the joy of singing K and playing at a birthday dinner, I didn’t even give my grandma a chance to say “Happy Birthday” to me.
She may have been looking forward to my call for a long time that day. She sat in her small room, watching the sky go down, and finally decided to write down all the wishes that had been brewing in her heart for a long time.
I realized that my grandma’s spiritual world was nowhere to be seen. The only son thinks she talks too much, and the only granddaughter is busy pursuing her own life, she can only hide all her emotions in this diary.
She wrote me a New Year’s message at the end of the year, encouraging me to cherish my time, have less fun, and work harder.
Some letters, written after the call with me. I often write a full article – as if I received a call from meIn other words, it is the most important event for her this month.
I called my nickname between the lines and wrote her heartache: “Jie Er, I’m heartbroken when I hear your cry on the phone.”
“Jie Er, you have to laugh at life, face reality, and live your life steadily.”
Other letters, written before I get home a few times a year. The title is easy to understand, it’s called “Coming Home”, the handwriting looks a bit more scribbled than usual, and I don’t know if it’s because of hurry or excitement: “I heard your grandpa say on the phone that you are (already) returning home. On the train, it will be home in a few hours. I’m looking forward to it.”
“A girl will encounter many difficulties in other townships. She must pay attention to B (meaning) and use a clear head to deal with the burden (pay).”
But more words in the diary were written by grandma to herself. She wrote down her thoughts after watching the news: “What happened this year, some people jumped off the building, some people had a car accident, and one by one they just disappeared into the world.”
She writes about her hometown and childhood in her memories. The title of the article is “My Hometown is the Most Beautiful”: “A lot of big and small stones come after the flood every year. The nine-scented worms came flying and hid in the cracks of the rocks. If we are familiar, we will move the rocks to get treasures, and we can make them at home to compare with sea cucumbers and bird’s nests.”
Her sentences are sometimes very simple: “My hometown is so beautiful that girls on both sides of the Taiwan Strait quarrel. A young man who lacks ability can also marry a wife. So far, there is not a single bachelor.”
Occasionally, however, it is rudely written: “My hometown is indescribably beautiful, and my youth has flowed through it. I had no choice but to leave you more than 20 years ago, and I still regret it to this day.”
Grandma’s Diary: My Hometown is the Most Beautiful
Image source: Deoxynucleotide
It turns out my grandma used to ask me for help
In the diary, my grandmother wrote about her feelings about going to the grave during the Qingming Festival: “The deceased relatives are forever memories, and everything is still in my mind like yesterday.”
She wrote that she was finally willing to let go of the pain caused by her mother’s death: “Because (especially) my mother, I didn’t figure it out until last year that I’m going to go to the grave, so why bother? Keep torturing yourself!”
She wrote that it was getting harder and harder to fall asleep, as if she could feel her life passing: “It took longer to try to fall asleep than it took to fall asleep, and I woke up immediately after falling asleep, not knowing what my body was. Where, I don’t know why I live.”
Writing about her marriage filled with domestic violence and quarrels, she wrote, “I’ve lived in the wreckage of my marriage all my life.” The word “wrecked” in the wreckage is so complicated that grandma wrote it wrong .
She crossed it out and wrote it again, crossed it out and wrote it three times, and the last word “skeleton” is still wrong.
I stared at the erroneous word “skeletal”, and many clips that I “selectively deleted” flashed through my mind.
One evening when I was young, my grandmother was brutally kicked out of the house by my grandfather and locked the door.
She had to hold my hand and circle around the neighborhood until the night was getting dark and the cold wind blew my cheeks. Grandma had to knock on the door with her head down, begging in a low voice for Grandpa to at least let me in.
During my college days, I had the only unsolicited call from my grandma.
She was terrified and exhausted on the phone, saying she couldn’t sleep all night because her grandfather threatened to “kill her” during an argument.
“I moved the table against the door every night, but I was still afraid.” That year, my grandmother was 66 years old.
And that year, I was so worried about my homework, finals, and grades that I wanted to hang up after saying a few words of comfort. Grandma asked me to “deter” Grandpa, but I replied “I won’t really kill you, can you stop bothering me with these things?”
What hurts me the most is the letter she wrote to herself on her birthday, in which she wrote: “I wonder if anyone will remember, there was a girl in this world, beautiful Smart, hard-working and generous. But unfortunately, I married the wrong person, and my whole life passed like this.”
When I saw this sentence, my tears flowed straight down, and I realized: just like I always felt like a “little girl”, grandma will always be there I feel like a “girl” in my heart.
I hate being her granddaughter and being unable to protect this “girl” from violence and suffering all her life.
I will always remember this beautiful, intelligent, hard-working girl forever and ever.
Grandma’s thoughts in her diary
Image source: Deoxynucleotide
Scarred Grandma in Diary
Grandma’s diary is very wonderful, from front to back, you can see the old lady Ruihua;Turning forward, you can see the little girl Ruihua.
When I sneaked through my grandma’s diary, it felt like a book that had been open for a long time was finally closed with a “snap” – grandma is no longer just grandma, but Completely a woman.
But no matter how hard I try to imagine, I can’t imagine my grandma’s girlhood, or how Ruihua, as a daughter, a wife, and a young mother, lived in this world.
“What kind of woman was grandma before she became a mother, before she became a grandma?” This is a question I will never know the answer to.
The trivial clues I know, such as when my grandmother was a young tailor who was well-known in the small town, fought better than anyone else; for example, grandma brought Dad up almost alone in the middle of the night After the child fell asleep, she hurry up to make clothes… The grandma who put together these things has always been tough, strong and even stubborn.
Grandma never shed tears in front of me, but I saw her scarred in the writing full of typos. Or, is it more than scarred?
Ruihua, when did you become isolated and helpless?
Perhaps from the death of the only mother who would protect her. As the eldest sister, you dropped out of school and started to provide for your younger siblings. You did more work than men, and got married early.
Perhaps since the first beating. When others persuade you to be patient for the sake of your son, you endure it for the rest of your life.
Perhaps after finding out that your son has grown up and is unwilling to support you. If your son complains that you are not forgiving, and asks you to provoke your husband less, you will no longer be willing to take the initiative to talk to your husband.
Or maybe, when you are getting old and sick, but you are still afraid of being killed by your husband day and night, you can only ask me for help but get an impatient answer.
Ruihua, when I was seventeen when I was in the college entrance examination, I asked you “what is the meaning of life?” and you answered that you continued to live for me and my dad.
At that time, I was full of ambition and high spirits, and I scoffed at your answer, thinking that you are really a weak woman who only knows the meaning of life on the children.
Thinking about it now, even your son and granddaughter, two close relatives whom you regard as the “meaning of life”, never thought of listening to you, protecting you you.
I dare not think about those evenings sitting by the graves, those mornings after watching TV news, those birthdays no one remembers, those thousands of people who think “life In the dead of night, the only thing my grandma could rely on was this inferior and yellowed diary.
I took pictures of these grandma’s diaries and wrote to myself in a memo on my phone while crying: Don’t forget, grandma is far lonelier than you think. But I know I will forget.
Grandma was a very small part of my young life. We have drifted further away.
I am going through the most prosperous stage of a woman, and my grandma has grown old and has lost her femininity.
Grandma’s Diary
Image source: Deoxynucleotide
I came home once and found a plastic-enclosed photo by her bed of a young woman in a cheongsam standing in a garden.
And the face of this graceful cheongsam girl is that of a wrinkled old lady with cloudy eyes.
It turned out that my grandmother spent 50 yuan to put her head on the cheongsam girl at a roadside stall in the vegetable market.
Bad Photoshop that looks horrific and ridiculous, and I stare at this photo, heartbroken.
In this world, no one has ever asked her about her desires and emotions, or even thought she was a woman.
Grandma is 72 years old, her eyebrows are gone, her hair is going bald, her breasts are hanging down to her stomach, and she is short and fat.
But she, like all girls, wanted a nice photo to put on her bedside.
So my grandma, who was only willing to spend 30 yuan to buy a pair of shoes, spent 50 yuan for a photo like this.
Grandma’s Diary
Image source: Deoxynucleotide
Found grandma’s cuteness
After I peeked into my grandma’s diary, I started watching this girl named “Ruihua” and found her cute.
She would scold herself as “old and rude” when I painted her eyebrows, while obediently letting me put lipstick on her; she would take a selfie with me , hurriedly went to the closet to pull out the wig that was only worn during the Chinese New Year, and showed her identity to the camera.For the most perfect “showing 8 teeth” smile; her pillows are pink, her slippers are floral, the handbag she made for herself is lace, and the sachets are colorful.
She would go out with the small bag I eliminated, snap open the lock in front of her little sisters, and pull out the old computer to check the time.
Grandma’s daily necessities
Image source: Deoxynucleotide
She is used to a hard life and is never picky about food and clothing, but when I bought her a new old machine, she cautiously said to me: Can I buy a red one?
She is sometimes playful, and she thought I was always staying in bed, so she picked a sticky hook from the market and stuck it on the closet opposite my bed. Five words are written on the sticky hook: households who have difficulty getting up.
She is cute sometimes and I get paid to take her to buy new clothes and shoes.
She is like a little girl, carefully choosing colors, patterns and styles, turning around in front of the mirror, and asking me tangled: “Will I wear this dress? Others joke?”
“No, who dares to laugh at you, you look good in this dress.” Ruihua is 72 years old, and I will never allow anyone to bully her again. All good to her.
What is there in grandma’s life worth writing an autobiography?
I looked back on this question and quickly realized that in the future, I will also face this question – is there anything in my own life worth writing an autobiography?
Probably my answer is: no.
When I think about it this way, I am in awe of my grandmother, who made an account of her life.
Maybe there will come a day when grandma’s diary will never be updated again, and I will be like grandma, on the birthday that no one cares about, write down “The happiest time in my life is When I’m a girl”.
I only hope that at that time, I still remember that sentence written at the end of the letter, the ultimate wish from my grandma: “Finally I hope you: self-esteem and self-love, self-improvement.”
This article comes from our old friend Phoenix WEEKLY’s official account “Deoxynucleus Sweet”:
As a new account created by an old editor, we hope to record the lives of countless ordinary Chinese women with new perspectives and new techniques.
Here, we only talk about real problems.
Sometimes we cheer for kindness and speak up for injustice;
Sometimes, we pay attention to the stars – gossip is flying all over the sky, life is really interesting;
We record ordinary stories and find that the joys and sorrows of human beings can sometimes be connected;
The poetess who was riddled with holes and staggered through the world;
Girls with body anxiety;
Women who regret being mothers…
It’s all here, to be a free-voicing soul that is not defined by the world.
Deoxynucleotide, a public account run by girls. Hardcore, but not cold; gentle, yet rational.
All soft adults are welcome.
Written by: Sour Sister
Source of the first image: Deoxynucleotide
—Tips—
If you have health-related leads
Or experience related to disease, aging, death
Contributions are welcome