仿木兰辞

良山鸡犬

( u/ p4 \$ F- F( v. P唧唧复唧唧，课堂手机急。希光着了忙，忽闻母低泣。问母何所思，问母何所忆。母正有所思，母正有所忆。气短目光炯，声声呼儿名。汤药三两口，剧痛若趋轻。峥嵘岁月稠，汝且洗耳听。风烛虽旦夕，慈母仍从容。
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! B4 N1 o" z0 C往事从头说，一九三三年。降世东北陲，铁蹄伴童年。旦闻扶桑曲，暮荡高丽韆。不闻同胞笑朗声，但闻松花江水多呜咽。悄辞故乡去，追梦火车头。不闻爷娘唤女声，但闻八路军马鸣啾啾。
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十四抵丹东，光阴度若飞。食宿皆免费，学童有暖衣。还乡足未稳，物是人已非。地主女儿悲，无奈忍炎凉。明珠岂投暗，金质竟闪光。南国研矿学，峰回路转遇李郎。连理从此结，他乡成故乡。

, l' R- O, ?1 H矿井去复来，为国献韶光。精准量瓦斯，数载无伤亡。难忘三年前，畅叙奥运共凭窗。鸟巢咫尺间，天涯忽独翔。自慰且唏嘘，孝子李希光。头大娘难产，毛长父惊惶。门庭笼紫气，学府添辉煌。传薪有后人，笑看地久又天长！

文字已苍白，借力木兰辞。江城寄遥祝，逢凶化吉是吾期。

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/ I- b# I3 i7 w" j# r: m作者附言：
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    老同学李希光来信告诉我说“我母亲病重。来日不多。她对你记忆犹新。我的微博有关我妈的记录。http://t.sina.cn/dpool/ttt/home.php?uid=1822674203&d=mynewstoday”

    匆匆浏览他的微博和博客，除了写信慰问之外，还按他的下列回忆文字完成这首《仿木兰辞》。
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- N2 R. n' A. p                         Mother’s love never grows old

/ k5 O" X5 w1 pI was giving a lecture when the phone rang. “Mother is calling me,” I told the students apologetically, “I have to answer it because mother is calling me from hospital. She is very ill.”
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0 ]4 U6 H( c0 C* @" M' ~/ A# |  j9 G“Ma is missing you,” mother said, her voice barely heard, but I felt she was crying.
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“Don’t cry, Ma. I will come as soon as I finish class.”
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; X9 |! a7 k, h7 r; ~In a hospital ward, mother is lying in agony. Cancer has spread in her body and drugs can hardly alleviate her pain.
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When I entered the room, mother looked at me with an air of expectation. I pulled a chair and sat beside her bed. She had difficulty breathing. I gave her oxygen by inserting a cannula into her nose. Mother touched my face with her fingers and stroked my hair as if I was a baby.
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“Your birth was an ordeal,” mother said, “You were too slow coming. It took me more than a week to get you out. Again and again, I was wheeled in and out of the delivery room. Your head was too big, when being taken out. I was tortured for almost a month to deliver you into the world.”
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“Your father did not come to see me until the 8th day after you were born. I did not have an egg until the 9th day after your birth. I never had any fish soup when I was in confinement.”

“When your father finally came to see me, he did not understand the difficulty of childbirth. He asked: ’Isn’t it like a chicken laying an egg?’ Father even refused to hold you the first time he saw you. He said, ‘Look, the baby is all hair. I don’t like a hairy boy.’”
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Mother suddenly grabbed one of my ears and said mischievously, “wash your ears every day so that you will not be deaf when you grow old.”

“Are you very much in pain now?” I asked.
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# e7 T! x6 m  a& {5 nShe nodded.
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I fed mother a few drops of water through a straw. I gently stroked mother’s cheeks, chest, stomach, legs and feet. Mother looked less in pain. Then she looked at me with glowing eyes as if she had   something important to announce.

“Son, you don ‘t have to buy special clothing for my funeral.,” mother said calmly. “I’m going to wear a loose fitting garment, the Japanese-made overcoat your father bought years ago. For my feet, I like the pair of cloth shoes given by the mother of your student Xiao Lili.”

1 @+ h% O. U4 C* [8 R$ _: b% PIn 1933, mother was born in a Manchurian village two years after the Japanese occupied Northeast China. Grandmother, a Manchurian lady, gave birth to 15 children but only 6 survived. Mother started her school by learning Japanese and singing the Japanese national song Kimigayo ,until the Japanese surrendered in 1945. The following year, at the age of 14, taking a train and crossing the blockade line of the Nationalist army, mother went to a middle school run by the communist Eighth Route Army in Dandong, a city bordering Korea, where she not only received free education but also free accommodation in a dormitory, clothing and food.
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But her education in Dandong was ended in 1949 when the newly-founded communist government decided to terminate the all-providing school. Mother returned home only to find out that grandfather’s land and houses had  been confiscated and grandfather had been labeled as a “landlord”.  
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& @7 |- |- @, B( K  FSince grandfather had been labeled as a political enemy of the government, mother had no choice but to go to a mining college. Upon her graduation in 1953, mother and her classmate and boyfriend left Manchuria and went to southern China, where they got married and worked in coal mines for 40 years.

# A/ ^( x+ }! y+ G/ w3 U  H2 T4 w' S+ iMother worked  happily in 1950s and early 1960s as one of the first  women mining engineers in China - until the dawn of the Cultural Revolution.

1 x1 b  n2 W# K% l' j" yIn 1966, mother was persecuted as “stinky daughter of landlord” and stripped of her title of mining engineer. She was forced to labor as a miner. Father was sent to labor in a coal mine in the far southwestern province of Guizhou. Mother and father were then separated for 17 years. “Your father did not even come back home to see his dying mother,” mother always complained about this.  “Only I was there to take care of your grandmother and you. ”
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$ j) l% d' u& V" `7 C% J7 [) uBut mother never complained about the country. "Do not complain about how the country mistreats you. But always ask yourself what you contribute to your country,” mother always lectured me like this.
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“What contribution did you make to the country?” I asked.
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( s/ Q6 p4 V! N5 B( D“I measured gas levels in the mine. My measurement was accurate. The mines I measured never had any explosions. Never was a miner killed,” she said.

) Q2 w5 B( X2 w* v  C9 I) D  GThree years ago, I went to see my parents. Father sat by the window, looking at the Bird Nest, the stadium of Beijing Olympics. By that time, father was diagnosed as having lung cancer. “Be strong. I want you live to see Olympics with me, hand in hand,” mother told him, encouragingly. Bird Nest is only 10 minute walk from my parents’ home. But two weeks later, father passed away.
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A month before the Beijing Olympics, I flew to Inner Mongolia, where I ran in the Olympic Torch Relay in front of the Mausoleum of Genghis Khan. That night when I was back from Inner Mongolia, I gave my torch to mother. Mother placed the torch in front of father’s portrait, saying, “We should be proud of our son. He’s an Olympic torch runner. I’ve told all our neighbors and relatives about it.”

. y/ ]% g2 Y) @' e. _The next morning, mother organized a gathering of all the retired people in her neighborhood and relayed the torch happily. They took a lot of pictures of each one holding the torch.   

An hour had passed since I walked into the hospital. “I’ m sorry, son,” mother said, “I’m taking too much of your precious time.”

8 L! j- P  ?% T“What are you talking about,Ma? ” I said. “I’m your son!”