It was someone who suddenly remembered.
When I was a teenager, my father was still very young, and his outspoken personality and abundant energy allowed him to establish a wide circle of friends. Those old friends who had close contacts with him, I couldn't tell who was who, so I called them uncles and aunts perfunctorily. The intersection between them is nothing more than the caressing and teasing of the elders to the younger ones, a compliment of "growing taller", or the expected lucky money. Afterwards, I politely threw a "thank you" and turned around and ran away. As for the adults' next shoveling or shuffling, it has nothing to do with me.
During the summer vacation when I graduated from elementary school, my father took me to the provincial amusement park for my birthday, and on the way back, I stopped by to visit an old friend. In the crowded restaurant, an uncle named Bai warmly received us. Xu Shi was not in good health. Uncle Bai walked slowly and his face was pale, but he had a good chat with his father. It should have been many years.
After the party, my father was going to lead me to say goodbye to Uncle Bai. Suddenly, as I was playing with my phone, I felt that the schoolbag on my shoulder was being tugged by someone, looked up in doubt, and met Uncle Bai's smiling eyes: "I have prepared a birthday present for you, I wish you progress in your studies and admission to a key university. "It turns out that when I wasn't paying attention, Uncle Bai quietly stuffed a birthday red envelope and a gift box into the schoolbag. The red envelope was full of 12 hundred-yuan bills. The gift box was a popular Wenqu star in those days and made countless students dream of it. E-dictionary.
On the way back, I learned some of the other’s background from my father’s rambling instructions, “You must remember Uncle Bai’s goodness” and “Don’t use Wenquxing to play games”. After working in a factory, I was laid off due to the restructuring of the enterprise. Currently, I am opening a canteen in a college... In short, it was a bittersweet half of my life. As for other details, it has been overwhelmed by time. It doesn't matter whether the money is "confiscation" or not. The Wenquxing electronic dictionary, which carries the ardent hopes of the elders, was also damaged, dismembered, and left behind after a brief freshness.
There are various signs that Uncle Bai is being forgotten by me, becoming another vague-faced A, B, C, Ding in the group of elders.
Ten years later, in the summer, I was about to graduate from college, and the literary flame was burning in my heart. One day, while driving across the city, I mustered up the courage to visit a magazine and asked if it needed an intern. The female editor-in-chief who received me was very enthusiastic, but after communicating, I was embarrassed to find out that this is a marriage and love journal, and female interns are more welcome. In the end, the editor-in-chief politely rejected me and asked me to go to other magazines to find opportunities.
I nodded sadly, thanked me and prepared to leave. Xu Shi was moved by compassion, and the editor-in-chief insisted on keeping me for dinner, and used his meal card to help me brush a sumptuous dinner. During the meal, we chatted about literature and did homework, and the other party encouraged me to keep on writing.
After dinner, it was already evening. When I said goodbye in front of the building, the editor-in-chief suddenly stopped a taxi for me and prepaid the fare: "It's getting dark, take a taxi back to school, don't crowd the bus." Strangers who met by chance, with a trace of no trace. Cleverly, taking care of the sensitivity and financial constraints of a poor student. When I got into the taxi, I finally woke up from the shock and realized that I should leave the other party’s phone number for future gratitude.
A few years later, I happened to see that magazine soliciting manuscripts in a group of authors, and I immediately chatted with the editor privately in the excitement of giving it a try, asking for the contact information of the editor-in-chief. After some vigilance of "you just submit your manuscript directly to me", the other party said that their editor-in-chief had already changed, and she did not know the person I mentioned.
A tree wants to be quiet but the wind doesn't stop, a kindness wants to be repaid but people don't look for it. In the helpless melancholy, the unrelated memories were quickly reversed, and I suddenly remembered a person - the uncle Bai who was obviously struggling on the line of food and clothing, but who did not think about repaying the kindness to me. After having tasted the hot and cold world and getting used to the adult rules based on equivalent exchange, the warmth of auspicious feathers in life is worth cherishing even more.
I decided to act immediately and called Uncle Bai, who had been late for many years, only to find that I didn't have any contact information for him at all. Unexpectedly, my father was also confused and said, "I have too many friends with the surname Bai. Which one are you talking about? Why do I have no impression..." My father was old and began to regard home as the world. The circle is shattering and shrinking sharply, and the memory of friends is also eroded day by day.
I screamed badly, and kept describing limited keywords such as "commissary" and "Wenquxing" in an attempt to activate memories. The father curled up in the sofa was confused, and the sunlight leaking into the room illuminated his gray temples, and also illuminated the depression that he had to accept. Thinking that Uncle Bai was not in good health and had a bad premonition, I couldn't even bear to press my father again. The number of memory fragments is too small to spell out the original shape of the years. The thread of fate that wanted to hold the past is broken in my father's forgetfulness and my ignorance.
Later, when I went on a business trip to the provincial capital, I tried to visit the college I remembered. The name of the school at the gate has been upgraded from college to university, and there are nearly 10 canteens on the campus. I searched one by one in the heat of the midsummer, but unfortunately I found nothing—how much is the probability of finding a needle in a haystack?
In the hustle and bustle of the class, tears of regret crawled down my cheeks.
Because I was young and ignorant, I mistakenly took love for granted; because my heart was far away, I forgot the gaze behind me. In fact, what I'm looking for is not just Uncle Bai or the female editor-in-chief, but also the noodle shop aunt who freed me from the bill, the math teacher who led me through the rainy season, the neighbor sister who accompanied me to the hospital for infusions when my parents couldn't get away, those who The people who have cared and supported me in the journey of growth, and the grateful heart that has been lost for a long time.
Time is not too late, let me set off immediately, and give you a deep hug.
