At noon last Thursday, I went to Baizhang Town, Yuhang to visit a good friend I had known for many years. Unexpectedly, I met an empty-nester old man there. I was deeply touched and will never forget it for a long time.
I also met this empty nester by chance.
It was sunny that day, and my friend Zhiqiang (42 years old) and I had lunch and took a walk nearby to digest our food. Zhiqiang’s village is built on the middle of the mountain. Although they are all cement roads, except for the flat land around the house, the rest are high or gentle slopes. Therefore, it is not so much a walk as it is like climbing a mountain.
Zhiqiang and I walked up and chatted, and the moment I looked up, I noticed the house built on the high concrete platform in front of me. Because every household in this village is full of small bungalows and villas, only one bungalow from the 1980s suddenly appeared in the middle of the bungalows and villas, which is very special.
At that time, there was an old man sitting in an electric wheelchair looking into the distance at the door.
Subconsciously, I looked at the figure of the old man and asked Zhiqiang: “Do you know that old man in the wheelchair? How old is he?” Zhiqiang followed my gaze and recognized him immediately, “Oh, You said Uncle Chen, he should be 76 this year, what’s wrong?”
I asked curiously: “How do you think he is at home alone? What about the others?”
“He lives alone, an empty-nest old man.” Zhiqiang sighed and said, “It’s very pitiful. His wife died of illness more than 20 years ago. His son had a serious car accident in 2013 and was not rescued. There is also a daughter. , but my daughter married to Shanghai, and I don’t bring my granddaughter back. The grandson is probably too busy in Meijiaqiao, anyway, I haven’t seen him a few times. Only our neighbors often go to his house throughout the year. Take a look.”
As soon as I finished speaking, Zhiqiang led me to continue walking up, “I’ll take you to Uncle Chen’s house for a sit-down. Uncle Chen is a very nice person. He must be happy if someone goes by.”
It wasn’t until we got closer that I slowly saw the appearance of the old man: the face was covered with the ravines of the years, the gray hair was half covered by the black needle felt hat, and he was wearing a black cotton coat and a thin coat. He was wearing cyan trousers and a pair of dark cotton shoes. He sat slightly hunched on an electric wheelchair, with a telescopic crutch on the outside of his left leg. He was facing the outside of the house, quietly looking into the distance with his white and cloudy eyes, which were out of focus and motionless.
Like a statue left behind on an isolated island.
Zhiqiang explained: “Uncle Chen is old and has problems with his eyes and ears. We have to get close to him to see. If you talk to him, you’d better speak louder, otherwise he won’t be able to hear you.” Nod.
When we were about to reach the door, Zhiqiang raised his voice and shouted: “Uncle Chen! Uncle Chen!”
The old man froze for a moment, turned his head slightly to the left, as if confirming the sound just now, then grabbed the armrests on both sides of the electric wheelchair and slowly straightened his upper body, turned to the left, and looked straight at the gate come over.
It was as if a silent statue had been infused with life and revived.
After seeing clearly that it was us, the old man looked very happy, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened when he smiled. I felt that he was really happy that someone came to see him, but his behavior and language were very restrained and restrained. He just watched with a smile. We looked at us and said, “Why are you here?”
“My friend just came here today, so I’ll bring him over to sit with you.” After finishing speaking, Zhiqiang went into the room familiarly and took out two chairs, and handed one of them to me.
I put the chair opposite the old man and sat down. When I looked up, the old man looked back at me with a smile, so I chatted and asked the old man, “Uncle Chen, why do you want to buy an electric wheelchair?”
The old man thought for a while, then propped up the armrest of the electric wheelchair and slowly got up. I quickly stood up and held the old man’s arm to avoid accidents. The old man waved his hands and said with a smile that it was all right, then picked up the left crutch and walked a few steps forward with support. Only then did I realize that the old man’s right foot was a bit deformed, and his right hand was shaking all the time.
Obviously, the old man has poor legs and feet and needs crutches to assist him in walking, but he cannot walk for a long time. It’s just that the old man didn’t know how to express it, so he told me in this way.
Zhiqiang also added beside him: “Uncle Chen suffered from polio when he was a child, and then he became like this.”
“Have you ever used an electric wheelchair before?” I asked Zhiqiang. Zhiqiang said that it was the first wheelchair and also the first electric wheelchair, and he was the one who installed accessories for the elderly.
I asked the old man in disbelief: “If you don’t have a wheelchair, how did you go out before?” After all, here is Poe!
The old man still smiled kindly: “I used to go out when I was shopping for vegetables. If I have crutches, I can rest on the side of the road if I can’t walk. It’s okay to go downhill now. It’s too hard to carry vegetables uphill. Let me My daughter bought an electric wheelchair. There is also a vegetable basket behind it, and I can put the vegetables in it after I buy it. After returning from the vegetable market, I can still go around.”
When it comes to electric wheelchairs, the old man looks very happy. Compared with the two points and one line between the vegetable market and the home in the past, now the elderly have more choices and more flavors in the places they go.
I looked at the backrest of the electric wheelchair and found that it was a YOUHA brand, so I asked casually, “Did your daughter pick it out for you? It’s pretty good at picking, and the quality of this brand of electric wheelchair is okay.”
But the old man shook his head and said: “I watched the video on my mobile phone and thought it was good, so I called my daughter and asked her to buy it for me. Look, it’s this video.” He took out a full-screen mobile phone, skillfully flipped to the chat interface with his daughter with his right hand shaking, and opened the video for us to watch.
I also inadvertently discovered that the phone calls and messages of the old man and his daughter all stayed on November 8, 2022, which is when the electric wheelchair was just delivered home, and the day I went there was already January 5, 2023 .
Half squatting beside the old man, I asked him: “Uncle Chen, it will be Chinese New Year soon, will your daughter come back?” The old man stared blankly outside the house for a long time with his white and cloudy eyes, until I thought my voice was too low When the old man didn’t hear clearly, he shook his head and smiled bitterly: “They won’t come back, they’re busy.”
None of Uncle Chen’s family has been back this year.” Zhiqiang chatted with me in a low voice, “Just yesterday, four guardians came to check Uncle Chen’s wheelchair. Fortunately, my wife and I were there at the time, otherwise there would be no way For communication, Uncle Chen doesn’t speak Mandarin very well, and the guardian over there can’t understand the dialect, so we help convey it. ”
Suddenly, the old man came closer to me and asked me: “Do you know how long this electric wheelchair can be used?” I thought the old man would worry about the quality, so I told him that if YOUHA’s electric wheelchair is used normally, it will last for four or five years. Year is fine.
But what the old man is worried about is that he won’t live for four or five years.
He also smiled and said to us: “I am right now, waiting to die at home.”
I suddenly felt sad, and I could only tell Zhiqiang one by one that he could live a long life, but the old man laughed like he heard a joke.
It was also at that time that I realized how negative and sad this smiling empty-nester was about life.
A little sentimentality on the way home:
We never like to admit that sometimes we’d rather spend hours on video calls with friends we just met than minutes on the phone with our parents.
No matter how urgent the job is, I can spare a few days to visit my parents every year, and no matter how busy I am at work, I can still have dozens of minutes to call my parents every week.
Ask yourself, when was the last time you visited your parents, grandparents, grandparents?
So, spend more time with them, replace phone calls with hugs, and replace insignificant gifts during the holidays with a meal.
Companionship is the longest confession of love
Post time: Mar-17-2023