My great-grandmother is a mute. As far as I can remember, she is almost seventy years old. Her thin and soft lower lip was wrapped by the drooping upper lip, and her upper and lower lips were pinched into a line with a dignified expression.
She can't speak, but it's not that she doesn't understand the world. People looked at her and saw her heart. With her mouth closed, her eyes wandered around, looking at cats, dogs, pigs, chickens, haystacks, pigeons in the sky, trees and eaves, and the broken window in the back window of her small house.
For example, if you see that the haystack in the yard is short, you can take the draft pile, cut some outside with a draft basket and spread it out in the sun. The pigs and sheep in the pen opened their mouths and stretched out their necks to her, so they brought some pig grass. When watching them eat, my great-grandmother's mouth turned up, her eyes shone with gentle light, and her hands motioned to pigs and sheep respectively. I'm confused. Only when the lonely man talks to himself about the lovely creature can he know that his great-grandmother is expressing that kind of "sigh" and praising pigs and sheep in sign language that we ordinary people can't understand.
In spring, my great-grandmother likes to plant flowers and plants in the abandoned washbasin and put them on the low earth wall. Nail peaches and cordate telosma grow vigorously and can't die. When she "talked" to them one by one with gestures, the wrinkles on her forehead spread and her mouth turned up again, as if to communicate with flowers and plants. When the walls are full of red, purple, yellow and green, I will protect the children from picking them at will and playing with them carefully. Pink and purple nails are mashed with alum, and I wrap my nails with castor leaves. The next morning, when I took my hand to see the dyed nails, my dignified expression was full of goodwill, as if I had completed a great event.
Obviously, there are also naughty children who deliberately offend their great-grandmother. Go up to her and draw a circle on the ground, spit in the circle and step on it. Normal people's seemingly ordinary jokes are an insult to the dumb. My great-grandmother was so angry that her face was deformed and she tiptoed behind the child, but she couldn't catch up. She insisted on finding someone to smash the pot, and the adults smiled and gestured "apology" to her. She was out of breath.
Great-grandmother usually likes to sit cross-legged on the kang of her small house, bow her head and grin, and doing something for her family is a form that has nothing to do with her. The family went out, got off the kang, stood in the yard and looked around. Like being wary of thieves entering the house, they crept into my grandmother's room, looked around, touched everything, pursed their mouths, shook their heads and fluttered their noses. My wrinkled eyes seem to reject something. When I found that I was looking at her, my eyes narrowed and I immediately went out to the village street. In the cold winter and twelfth lunar month, she often goes out and walks nimbly and lightly. One hand is tucked in the sleeve of the hanging coat, and the cuff of the other hand is close to the mouth to keep warm. She is thin in the thin black soil cloth cotton-padded clothes, and more is watching the villagers, silently appreciating and rejecting, that's all.
Great-grandmother's maiden name is Zhang, and her name is unknown. Maybe she doesn't have a name. Few family members come to see her at ordinary times, and my grandfather and they have confirmed this. On holidays, even people in their sixties and seventies go to visit their grandparents, but grandpa doesn't go. It is said that the Zhang family is in the grain business, and most of them are grain. Rich people in rural areas, the water spilled by married women, do not want to be contaminated by poor relatives, what's more, great-grandmother is dumb.
In fact, grandpa's reason is untenable. Go home and chat with my father this Spring Festival. I read a magazine "Yanggu Jingyanggang". He wears reading glasses and draws on the table. Father said that my great-grandfather gambled and lost all the remaining eight points in the family. The whole family screamed with hunger. My great-grandfather was paralyzed and curled up on the rotten kang seat, listening to his great-grandmother's sad and heavy breathing, but he couldn't say a word.
At least my great-grandmother has the shrewd mind of a businessman from the Zhang family, and her children are not bad. Grandpa got married early in his teens to support everyone.
In the eyes of my grandmother, it is not accurate to say that my great-grandmother is kind. I don't care about my grandmother's hard-working poor days, and I don't care about the sewing of my brother-in-law's rags. But when I saw my eldest son "suffer indignities", my eyebrows stood up, staring at him spitting and stamping his feet with the gesture of "mm-hmm", but that's not all.
However, I saw my great-grandmother and sheep sticking to my face, catching dragonflies and tying long lines for me and the children next door to play with. She also held the flowers and plants on the wall with her hands and kissed them with wrinkled lips. My mother is very angry in a big family. She dragged her to the room to wipe her tears, pointed her finger at the outside, pursed her throat and stamped her foot to "scold" the person she refused.
Great-grandmother seems to be an idle person at home, unlike grandparents, who are busy at home and outside. She doesn't do anything, so she naturally has less troubles. Like Tao Tao who was drunk, she couldn't wake up when she was drunk, but she kept silent about everything, especially when she saw creatures and children. Swallows fly through the air. She stood by and watched, her mouth slightly open and she couldn't see her teeth. I don't know if she is smiling like that, but her expression is quite complicated. Holding the hand of a child like me, her clothes were uneven, and the child she held giggled. What is fresh in my memory is that she took a can of honey and could not bear to eat it. She dragged us into her room, dipped in chopsticks and tasted it. She looked at the tip of our tongue and licked our upper and lower lips. Her face relaxed and her expression was gentle. In summer, get me a rotten-edged cattail fan to repel mosquitoes. When I saw the bulging bag, I dipped in saliva to "disinfect" me.
Sometimes, my great-grandmother will be busy. In summer, I watched my grandfather weave baskets under the eaves, and my great-grandmother helped me, so I learned quickly. In winter, I tied the pot ring with wheat straw with grandpa, which is better and faster than grandpa. Grandpa sold knitwear to buy oil, salt, sauce and vinegar, and didn't forget to give her a catty of peach crisp. She took her eldest son and gave him a piece to eat in her mouth. I wanted to laugh, but my great-grandmother looked dignified.
My father said that my great-grandmother entered the new house with good news, like a tree with lush foliage, and her family business was prosperous. Through the thick years of dust, in the clear spring, I seem to see my loving great-grandmother coming towards us again. When the sun shines, I clean the room. Under the oblique light, a lot of dust flew like shiny particles and finally settled down one by one. This is my great-grandmother's life. She lives in a quiet world and doesn't disturb everything.
When I returned to my hometown during the Spring Festival, I went to the backyard on purpose. The original foundation was a house turned over by parents, and there was no wing in the east-west direction. The house has never been inhabited, and it has become a dangerous house every year. The yard was overgrown with weeds and time was wasted. I stood by the hut where my great-grandmother lived, and the distant memory was like the arrival of the earth at the beginning of the new year, and everything gradually recovered. I searched the whole yard, even went to the village street and walked along the street where my great-grandmother walked. However, everything has become so big that I can't let go, only a touch of sadness. What reaches my heart is what melts with time and finally forms.