I opened the glass door and looked at the sky. Perhaps because of pollution, the starry sky is no longer as luxuriant in my memory when I was a child, and only a few scattered stars were left in the stark sky, even the originally dark blue sky that revealed the tranquility became gray.

It turns out that so many changes have taken place during the time I was away, and even the sky that I thought would never change no longer exists. So many stars are now far away from me; probably, grandma is one of them.

I leaned against the door, blowing in the wind, no longer looking up at the sky. I think this is because the stars are temporarily invisible because of pollution, they are still themselves, they still exist. As time goes by, I think I will see the stars again, just like I can see my grandma again.

Suddenly, I felt a trace of relief.

I opened the familiar interface.I often opened the chat interface with my grandma recently. Not every time do I say anything, maybe it's because I've been living in a mess during this period of time, maybe it's because I have too many thoughts to talk about. Most of the time I just stared at this interface, my mind was full of memories of my grandma, just like my current state.

I think of the white gauze princess dress she bought me when I was a child. I remembered how she protected me and got angry at my aunt after my aunt scolded me. I remembered the many bowls of instant noodles she gave me… I thought a lot until the screen was wet with tears that I came back to my senses.

I wiped my tears, typed "Grandma, I miss you so much" on the screen, and clicked send.

I looked at the small green squares on the right side of the screen, and there was no dialog box on the left. I told myself that my grandma could not use the phone yet and would not reply. She was watching. One day, after she learns how to operate her mobile phone, she will reply to me!

There is no wave in the air, as if time has stopped, and I am the only thing that can move and change in this space. The wind outside the window sounded distant and deep, as if it came from a cave. All this brings me a rare feeling, I feel that I can do everything I want to do in this space, without worrying about the way others look at me, worrying about whether it will disturb others, or pretending that nothing happened. Be myself.

I suddenly realized the freedom that this place brings to me, and my long-repressed emotions can be vented here. So I lay down on the floor without any scruples as I wanted, pounding the floor and crying bitterly. My mouth wide open, I can finally let out a miserable howl, letting my nose run and tears flow.

I feel that I have been crying for a long time. Although I didn't look at the time, it was the longest cry in my memory. I called out all the grievances, regrets, anger, and anxiety in my life to the world. I looked at the surrounding furniture, their shadowy silhouettes also looked like they were overlooking from a high place, looking at me with sympathetic eyes, which contained sorrow and doubt, just like the last time my grandma looked at me.

Lying on the ground, I looked at the shadow of the tall furniture. They looked like solemn and loving old people, they all had the same grandma's eyes. Perhaps, grandma is not as lonely as I thought, right? She would meet someone similar to her in that world. Some peers who can understand her. Maybe she will be happier than she was alive, right?

My mother immediately pointed her finger at me, "Do you think you are the only one who is in justice?", she stared at me fiercely. But maybe because she hasn't seen me for a long time and that brings her a sense of strange, her anger seems to have subsided a little, and she no longer yells at me. Instead, he said, "Forget it, I'm the only person worrying about everything . You guys don't care about all the work and I have to do it all. I don't care what you do. Don’t bother me anymore" After that, she left the meeting.

My mother seemed angry that she began to snort: "Oh, you can't tell who your mother is, right? You are very close to your aunt, aren’t you? You even helped her to scold me? You are such a good daughter! " Her reason seemed to be a little bit further bewildered by her emotion, she began to laugh, and shouted into the air: "Mom! Look at these people! They killed you and want to piss me off! Mom, why don't you take me with you." She squatted on the ground and pulled her hair.

I wanted to stop her self-abuse action but was being pushed away by her fierce wave of arms, she said loudly, "Don't touch me". I looked at my aunt, she still lowered her head and didn't look at anyone, as if she was ignorant of everything that happened to us. My dad grabbed me and said, "leave here and let your mother be quiet"

The moment I blurted out this sentence, I regretted it. My aunt looked sad enough, why should I put more pressure on her?

Auntie raised her head and looked at me,surprisingly, her expression was not as excited as before. She said, "Jiaxin, you have to speak with your conscience. Am I not good to you and your grandma? Is your grandma's death what I want? Do you know how much I blame myself?" She didn't look at me after she said it. Then she didn't look at me or my mom, just hurriedly said: "Brother-in-law, I'll go out first" to my dad and left. My dad was smoking a cigarette and said, "Hey, it's dark now, don't go too far, NanNan will feel bad if you hurt yourself." My aunt responded and staggered away.

I glanced at my dad. I didn't expect him to be this affectionate, knowing to mention my cousin, make my auntie have this concern, so that my aunt won't do any drastic actions anymore. I secretly blamed myself, knowing that what I said just now was very harmful to my aunt, but because my mother was still here, it was difficult for me to chase out and apologize to my aunt to change my position. Had to give up.

We stayed temporarily in a hotel near the funeral home, and I almost stayed up all night because of what happened last night, and felt very uncomfortable. I guessed that my question would be difficult for them to answer, but I didn't expect it to cause barriers and harm.

Despite the quarrel that broke out last night, everyone gathered in the funeral home the next day. Today is a very important day. Grandma's body will be cremated today. From now on, grandma's body will never be recovered. I watched my grandma's coffin slowly enter the pitch-dark cremation furnace. My aunt suddenly knelt down and cried kowtow until grandma’s corpse can’t be seen . At that moment, I felt sorry for my aunt. I looked at her figure, and couldn’t help crying. At that time, I felt that my chin was twitching uncontrollably, but after almost ten seconds, I suddenly calmed down. There was no special feeling, I just felt that my brain was blank. A line of us waited outside the cremation room, surrounded by a hustle and bustle of all kinds of people, most of them were crying bitterly, and some were tearing and blaming each other. I looked at the various sad expressions of so many of them, but I couldn't see any waves in my heart, I just felt noisy. As if what I saw was just the disappearance of another creature.

After waiting for about an hour, the staff came out with the ashes in their hands. A piece of white mixed with dots of black. Our whole family just watched the two staff ask us to bring part of the ashes for us to take back for burial. Later, according to the custom of our hometown, The cremated remains must be stored in the funeral home until the cemetery is found. I watched my grandma’s ashes being taken away by the staff and placed in a small dark room. I watched the vase gradually go away, remembering that when we last met, did my grandma watch us go in the same way? Did she want to call us back like I do now, but hold back, knowing that the other side will not stop leaving anyway?

My mother agreed to this proposal. She felt that when family member passed away, she should gather their belongings so that the person who passed away would not be too worried.

So we went back to the house where I lived when I was a child. the smoke-blacked place no longer exists. Mom said that they couldn't stand it anymore and repainted the wall. But all the remaining furnishings are still as before as I remembered.

I helped clean up, picking up pieces of memory fragments in this long-lost room:

When I was in elementary school, I was obsessed with embroidering cross-stitch. One time when I went to visit my grandma's house on a weekend, I gave her the first cross-stitch I embroidered. Today, I saw that small bag again. It was already kind of yellowing because of age, and the left side was obviously cracked. She used the blue thread to patch it up again. It seemed that she cherished it. She walked away too suddenly, leaving no words behind. I put the small bag in my pocket and prepared to burn it to her the next time sweeping tomb.

I also found the last red envelope for the Spring Festival that my grandma left me in the drawer. Because I am not home every Chinese New Year, she always put the red envelope in this drawer and waited for me to pick it up when I had time to come back. Fortunately, I didn't use money in it yet. I kept this little money, and when I held it in my hand, I felt that my grandmother treated me as nice as she was when I was a child. It felt like she never walked far away.

An umbrella was found in a corner of the closet. It was the item that impressed me the most that day. I feel very strange, because this umbrella has never appeared in my memory. My mother said that she knew it, when my grandma was young, my grandfather took her to Great Eastern, a big shopping mall at that time, and bought it. That umbrella was expensive back then; grandma didn't hold it even once, and wrapped it in a newspaper like a baby.

I became silent when I heard this. From my childhood till now, no one has ever mentioned grandpa. I gradually realized that mentioning him was also a taboo in the family, so I never asked. But I vaguely think that he must be related to grandma's mental illness. Otherwise, everyone would not be so secretive.

This time my mother took the initiative to mention it. I think this might be a good opportunity to ask about my grandpa. So I asked, "It's been so long, can you tell me about grandpa?" Although this sentence was vague, my mother certainly knew that I was referring to the stories of grandma and grandpa over the years. She looked at me with a calm expression. "You have grown up, it's probably time to tell you that." So the long-lost past will finally reveal its mystery to me. At that time, I felt like I had been imprisoned in a secret room for more than 20 years. One day, the heavy black walls all around suddenly began to loosen. I wanted to push the surrounding walls because the outside was the truth that I had longed for, but also very scared, afraid of the unknown that I was about to face. But my worry seems to be too late. The loosen walls around have gradually collapsed in response to my mother's voice.

It turned out that both grandma and grandpa were sent to Qinghai during the Cultural Revolution. Grandma was sent from Xi'an and grandpa from Shanxi to Qinghai to support production. Qinghai is located on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which is one of the least developed places in China. The place where they were assigned was the Qinghai Foundry. At that time, China made every effort to develop the secondary industry. The foundry was a product of the times. At that time, the Qinghai Foundry was like other state-owned factories, located in relatively remote areas and dozens of kilometers away from the nearest town. Basically, all the workers needed for their daily lives can be solved in the factory area, which can be said to be a community where every member has close relationships.

Grandma was an accountant at the only shop in the factory at that time. She was superb with the abacus and won first place in the factory's abacus contest. According to my mother, my beautiful and capable grandma who was single at that time could be said to be in the limelight and no one could compare for a while. Grandpa was a very diligent person, from the production team member he became the production team leader then to the production director. He was also considered a rare young talent in the factory. At that time, my grandmother's leader saw that they were very suitable, and they were both almost at the age of marriage, so he introduced them to each other. They hit it off and got married in less than a year. After marriage, grandma gave birth to four children including my mother and aunt.

But the estrangement slowly began to appear. There may be a lot of differences between the two of them: Grandpa is a very diligent person. He is the first to go to work in the office every day. Before working hours, he cleans the table and fills the teacup for each colleague, then does cleaning work, then reads the newspaper and waits for work. Mom said that one of the things that impressed her the most about Grandpa was to teach her that no matter what, it is always right to be ten minutes early. At that time, there was no mobile phone. Grandpa always adjusted his watch ten minutes forward so that he would never be late and would not make others feel disrespected. And he is not only like this at work. At home, mom said that grandfather always rushed home from work at noon on weekdays, peeled a pot of potatoes and washed a pot of cabbage for the family of five to make a table of food in time. The dish never changed on weekdays because the potato cabbage stew is quick to make. When the dish is stewing, my grandpa will wash off all the dishes and the cutting board, wipe the stove and mop the floor, never relaxed for a moment. After the family finished eating, he hurried back to work and left finished dishes in the sink which he will clean after work. Until the rest day he can finally find time to cook some different dishes for mother and other children.

However, grandma seems to have always been a lazy person. Her education is a college degree, and grandfather only has a junior high school diploma. Mom said that she often used this difference in education to belittle grandfather. She didn't take on a lot of housework at home, because the shop where she went to work was far away from home. She always ate with her colleagues and didn't rush home. At that time, she only smoked occasionally, and she smoked because cigarettes were a rarity at the time. She smoked for a little bit of ostentation, but she didn't have much addiction to cigarettes.

Grandpa was somewhat dissatisfied with grandma's lazy attitude, and grandma would talk back that grandpa's education is low. In fact, my grandfather was very pained about his low academic qualifications, because he always wanted to be the deputy factory director, but there are age and education restrictions for being a deputy factory director. Because of his academic qualifications, he probably missed the position of deputy director in his life. Therefore, grandpa was very disgusted with grandma's repeated mention of academic qualifications. Under this cycle, a deep communication gap was formed.

Until one day, there was an unclear relationship gossip between my grandfather with a production team member in their office spreading in the whole factory. After these rumors spread throughout the factory, it finally reached my grandma's ears. My grandma is someone who with a strong personality, of course, would not sit still. On the day she heard the news, she rushed to grandpa’s office, caught my grandpa and the female production team member and scolded them, and went to the factory director’s office and found the factory director and complained about grandpa’s shameless behavior.

Mom said that at least from her point of view, there wasn’t any story between grandpa and that colleague at the time. At most, grandpa took some special care of her, but they did not have any private interaction. After all, Grandpa's daily schedule is very tight and there is no spare time for him to do this. But after grandma went to the office to make trouble, they seemed to be closer together. Because grandma complained to them everywhere, they seemed to have formed a state of isolation everywhere, which instead made them feel a sense of sympathy.

In this way, things happened for about half a year, and grandma's eyes became more and more hostile when looking at grandpa, and the relationship between grandpa and his colleague grew deeper. One day, they probably had a discussion. Grandpa and the colleague eloped. They went far away, to Beijing, and threw all the children, responsibilities and pressures to grandma without any communication beforehand.

Everyone in the factory knew the whole story, and the gaze towards grandma was mixed with sympathy and gloating. This kind of public opinion pressure suddenly fell on grandma. And the four children she hadn't been taken care of before were still counting on her. The collapse in her heart can be imagined. Fortunately, at this time, my mother had already gone to college, but she was out of town. My mother hurried home after she received a call from her aunt. The picture she saw when she came back home was a mentally broken grandma and three younger brothers and sisters who were at a loss.

Fortunately,my mother is a very strong person. She did not evade responsibility but was thinking about how to solve the problem. First, she took grandma to a nearby hospital for testing. The hospital said that grandmother had schizophrenia and needed to be hospitalized. So my mother endured her grief and took grandma back to the city where she went to school, and placed her in a nearby mental hospital to visit her every weekend. In the next few years, only the eldest aunt was admitted to the university. Auntie ,who is close with me, and uncle did not study well since they were young, and it was also because grandpa was a leader in the factory, and the position at that time could be passed on to his children. They had been waiting for grandpa’s position or work arrangement for them so they never made any other plans for the future.

My mother said that in the third year after my grandma was hospitalized, my uncle called her and said that because my grandpa ran away, the people in the factory bullied him and my aunt. The job arranged for him was smelting workman, the most painful and tiring work of the whole factory. He couldn’t take it anymore, He hoped my mother could help him. My mother immediately left for Qinghai and saw that my uncle was the only one who was working in the workplace where a high temperature of thousands of degrees. He has to go to wet the sack, put on the sack with water then put coal on the stove with a shovel frequently. He was black and thin. Mother cried when she saw this scene. Because of the traditional patriarchal thinking, uncle has always been a well-known "Chang master" in the entire Qinghai Foundry. At home, he has never done any housework, only been spoiled. Everything in his life was eating, drinking and having fun every day. But look at him now, when he gets tired, he could only doze off on a narrow stool next to the boiler. His face was scalded with soot from time to time. Mom had never seen him as abject as this.

My mother used a lot of effort to help uncle find a job in the city where she was studying. Fortunately, the state-owned factory was already withering at this time, so people in the factory had no energy to stop it. Mother took care of my youngest auntie who was just 16 years old with her everyday. Finally, this whole family of people settled down.

At this point, my grandma had been in the mental hospital for a long time, and her condition had gradually been brought under control. No more babbling words, no more smashing things. It's just that she began to be silent for a long time. Only when her children were visiting, did she speak normally, and she was unwilling to communicate with other people.

After many more years, when mother finally had enough income, she bought a small two-bedroom apartment for grandma to live in. Because my mother had always been renting apartments before and changed places due to various reasons, she was afraid that frequent changes of the environment would adversely stimulate grandma's condition. Only then the place of stories in my memory happens.

Hearing this, I looked at the umbrella. It turned out that she had such a deep obsession with grandpa. It seemed that reminiscing about the story of her and grandpa was the motivation for her to live. The newspaper was yellow and dilapidated, but the umbrella was still in good condition. It's really touching.

Mom’s long story finally came to an end, she exhaled, as if this story had been pressing on her heart for a long time, and today she was finally able to vomit it. Her expression is also lighter. Just the right touch here to bring the chapter to and end.

I am a person who likes writing stuff. I always write to my friends during holidays, and I send postcards to the people who I care about when I travel, and I often write diaries --- probably counting as letters to myself. When I thought about doing something for my mother in order to make her feel better, I felt that she was so self-blamed for grandma's pain before leaving, I thought, why on earth did she think so?

Everyone knows that it takes a lot of money to rescue her mother. She spend so much money to do so because she hopes that grandma can become a miracle and can stay longer in this world where so many people love her. That’s not completely selfish. The reason why she blamed herself was because she felt that she not only had not let the miracle happen, but also caused grandma to suffer a lot of extra pain. But in fact, my grandmother at that time was already brain-dead, and she shouldn't feel the pain anymore. Mother's self-blame actually shouldn't exist, not to mention she being so depressed because of it.

I think, at this moment, the only person who can untie the knot of my mother is herself. When I usually write things, I find that if you want to write even just a little bit of logic, the process requires you to figure out what happened in your mind before you can write. And this process can help you think about it from a more neutral and objective perspective. Perhaps, I can help my mother write some letters to grandma, so that she can understand that this matter is not her fault, she has done her best.

I found my mother and said to her, "I want to write a letter to my grandma to burn it over to her, but I think my grandmother would definitely want to receive your letter as well, and I'm lonely writing a letter by myself. Can you be together with me?" . Mom seemed interested, so I hurriedly arranged papers and pens for her, afraid that she would regret it.

"But, what should I write?" Mom asked me, she didn't have the habit of writing things like me. "Everything is okay", I replied to her "I am going to write to her whatever I want to tell her". After a while, I saw that she hadn’t even started writing, I was afraid that she would give up. I quickly said more details, “I’m going to write to her and tell her what happened to me, and ask her what would happen if she was in my situation, and there is something that I was planning to tell her when we meet. What about you gonna write?" Mother seems to be awakened, I guess she finally thought of what to write, but she said impatiently, "I know, I know, you can just write it yourself. Don't bother me by talking"

I glanced at her secretly and saw her writing quickly; I smiled secretly to relax and started to write my own letter to grandma. When I put down the pen after writing more than two pages eloquently, I turned my head and saw that my mother was still writing with a focused expression of sorrow. I hurriedly lowered my head and pretended to continue writing for fear of interrupting her emotions. Hearing her rustling writing stop, I turned my head after a while and stretched out and said to her, "I'm finished.", “Yep” Mom answered me, indicating that she had finished writing as well. I asked, "Can you show it to me?" As I have expected, mom said, "You show no respect for your elders! this is for your grandma!"

So I said "okay, then let's go and burn it for grandma." So I walked to the altar of grandma with my mother. I picked up my letter, folded it and lit it, and then my mother did the same. We watched the letter we just wrote burn to ashes in the incense burner. The letter only burned for a short time, but it took a long time for my mother to stare at the photo of grandma on the altar. There are many complex emotions in her eyes.

After a long time. She said to me softly, "Let's go". Then she stayed in her own room all afternoon. When she came out at night, she obviously looked a lot more relaxed, and even smiled at me after a long absence.

The first person I found was of course my aunt. Auntie and I grew up together, so it will be easier for us to open up this relatively sensitive topic.

I first asked her if she knew anything about grandpa. She said, "Of course I do. I'll tell you what you want to hear. Just don't tell your mother." I said "Of course, but why didn't you tell me before?" She said, "Because your grandma's still alive. What if one of your children makes her sick by talking nonsense in front of your grandma, what should we do? We discussed and reached an agreement of not telling this to children in your generation." I said, "No wonder, then you hurry up. Tell me that story, I’ve been waiting for a long time!” She smiled and responded, “Oh, you are so impatient, let’s talk about it now.”

With excitement, I held my chin and looked at my aunt with my eyes full of stars, waiting for her to tell me the story I had been longing for.

It turned out that both grandma and grandpa were sent to Qinghai during the Cultural Revolution. Grandma was sent from Xi'an and grandpa from Shanxi to Qinghai to support production. Qinghai is located on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which is one of the least developed places in China. The place where they were assigned was the Qinghai Foundry. At that time, China made every effort to develop the secondary industry. The foundry was a product of the times. At that time, the Qinghai Foundry was like other state-owned factories, located in relatively remote areas and dozens of kilometers away from the nearest town. Basically, all the workers needed for their daily lives can be solved in the factory area, which can be said to be a community where every member has close relationships.

Grandma was an accountant at the only shop in the factory at that time. She was superb with abacus and won first place in the factory's abacus contest. According to my mother, my beautiful and capable grandma who was single at that time could be said to be in the limelight that no one can compare for a while. Grandpa was a very diligent person, from the production team member became the production team leader then to the production director, he was also considered a rare young talent in the factory at that period. At that time, my grandmother's leader saw that they were very suitable, and they were both almost at the age of marriage, so he introduced them to each other. They hit it off and got married in less than a year. After marriage, grandma gave birth to four children including my mother and aunt.

Aunt has always been a little overlord, and she doesn't want to study hard. Every day, she brings a bunch of children from the production team under the supervision of grandpa to play pranks everywhere. Aunt said that one of the things she was most proud of was that she used a toothpick to plug the keyhole of school the night before the final exam. The next day the principal came to open the door and found the toothpick inside, and immediately shouted, "Chang Rong!!! You come out and open the door!!" , auntie smiled triumphantly when she talked about it, saying that the principal was so frightened by her, and this time the principal was so angry.

She played truant almost every day, except for going home obediently for lunch at noon, and doing evil stuff with her little gang outside. She either stole the bacon that was hanging outside of someone’s house or deflated someone’s bicycle tires. She didn’t have any troubles and was just happy day by day.

Until one day, my aunt heard from her little gang secretly talking about the unclear relationship between my grandpa and a production team member in their office. She was so angry that she beat the two gossipers. But she kept hearing it afterwards, until the gossip finally reached my grandma's ears after they spread throughout the factory. Grandma has a strong personality, of course, she would not sit still. On the day she heard the news, she rushed to grandpa’s office, caught my grandpa and the female production team member, scolding them, and went to the factory director’s office and then found the factory director to complain about grandpa’s shameless behavior.

Auntie gritted her teeth when she said this. She said that my grandfather and that woman were really shameless and made my grandma so sad. She remembered my grandma, a proud and stubborn person, her face in tears every night because of this incident. As a little overlord, she thinks she has the responsibility to seek justice for grandma. As a child, she had no other way, but when she saw grandma sad and crying another time, she couldn't hold her anger anymore. She chased grandfather all over the factory with a kitchen knife, and asked him to hurry up and leave that woman, and give grandma an explanation. But obviously this action didn't change my grandfather's mind. He was still shouting at my aunt at this time, "When I die, I will burn everything out, I won’t leave you a penny!!" Aunt must have been very impressed by this sentence. When she told the story, she imitated the tone of the grandfather at the time with gritted teeth. But after about half a year, my grandma's gaze towards grandpa became more and more hostile, and the relationship between grandpa and his colleague grew deeper. One day, they probably had a discussion. Grandpa and the colleague eloped. They left far away, went to Beijing, and threw all the children, responsibilities and pressures to grandma without any communication.

Everyone in the factory knows the whole story, and the gaze towards grandma is mixed with sympathy and gloat. This kind of public opinion pressure suddenly fell on grandma. Moreover, the four children who hadn't been taken care of before were still counting on her, she had no experience. The collapse in her heart can be imagined. Seeing such a scene, aunt had to call mother who had already gone to school in the field. My mother hurried home when she received the call from aunt, when she came back home, she only saw her mentally broken grandma and three younger brothers and sisters who were at a loss.

Fortunately, my mother is a very strong person. She did not evade responsibility but was thinking about how to solve the problem. First, she took her grandma to a nearby hospital for testing. The hospital said that her grandmother had schizophrenia and needed to be hospitalized. So my mother endured her grief and took her grandma back to the city where she went to school, and placed her in a nearby mental hospital to visit her every weekend. In the next few years, only the eldest aunt was admitted to the university. Aunts and uncles did not study well since they were young, and it was always because grandpa was a leader in the factory, and the position at that time could be passed on to his children. They had been waiting for grandpa’s work arrangement for them so they have never made any other plans for the future.

In the days when my grandma and grandpa were not there, my uncle and auntie became the only ones that they could depend on each other in the entire foundry. Those who were polite and greeted with their smiling faces became disgusting. People ridiculed them, and the little friends who had played best with aunt were gradually estranged from her under the persuasion of his parents. And she also watched that my uncle, who had planned to succeed as the leader, was forced out of the factory by the leadership of the factory to the position of the smelting worker with the worst environment. He was very tired from work every day, and his hair was scorched, and his face was densely covered with small pits burned out by ashes.

After the aunt's persuasion, my uncle who was unwilling to show weakness to others finally called mother and asked her for help. He said that because grandfather ran away, the people in the factory bullied him and his aunt. The work arranged for him was the most painful and tiring work of smelting. He could hardly stand it anymore. And hope my mother can help him. My mother immediately left and returned to Qinghai. After seeing her uncle's tragic situation, she used a lot of effort to help him find a job in the city where she was studying. Fortunately, the state-owned factory was already withering at this time, so there was no energy to stop this from happening. My aunt was also taken by mother to be taken care of.

At this time, my grandma had been in a mental hospital for a long time, and her condition had gradually been brought under control. No more babbling words, no more smashing things. It's just that she began to be silent for a long time. Only when her children are visiting, will she speak normally, and she is unwilling to communicate with others.

After many more years, when mother finally had enough income, she bought a small two-bedroom apartment for grandma to live in. Because my mother had always been renting an apartment before and changed places due to various reasons, she was afraid that frequent changes of the environment would adversely stimulate grandma's condition. Only then the place of stories in my memory happens.

The story ends here. As a feminist, I naturally sigh at my grandma's experience. It was the grandfather who had an ambiguous relationship with others and eloped with another without any responsibility at all without saying a word. In my opinion, this behavior is simply unacceptable. Obviously, my aunt held the same view as me, so we fought against Grandpa's behavior for a long time. How did you do that? Did you encounter him? Or was it your feelings that were so difficult?

I am very happy to have such an ally who is willing to exchange "secret information" with me. Of course, I have to ask all the doubts that have been trapped in my heart over the years, so I asked, "Oh right, why does grandma keep smoking Cat cigarettes? "My aunt said, "I remember that when I was a child, your grandpa brought us a black cat. We kept it. It was especially good at catching mice, so we called it a Goodcat. After a few years, Goodcat ate a rat which had eaten rat poison. So Goodcat was also poisoned to death. Maybe your grandma missed that day very much." I nodded. It turned out to be the case. I then asked, "Then why did she say that Chairman Mao is coming back at five o'clock?" My aunt sighed, "Your grandfather gets off work at five o'clock, and his work place is really close to home, so every time it's almost a few minutes he can go home. Your grandma is probably waiting for him. When your grandpa was young, he was always said to look like Chairman Mao, saying that he would do great things in the future. It seems one of the reasons why your grandma chose him as husband."

Yes, although I have not lived in their era, I can imagine that people at that time probably had a deep worship for Chairman Mao. Grandma might think that people who looked like Chairman Mao would be very powerful as well.

All the mysteries have been solved. I used to have all kinds of ideas, but I didn't expect the answer to be so empty and heavy. Empty because love is something that was uncontrollable but it could hurt people so badly. Heavy because grandma destroyed most of her life because of another person's mistake.

I found my mother and told her that I knew the story of grandma and grandpa. I think she guessed who told me, even though my aunt and I said not to tell my mother that it was she. But I am sure that my mother will not blame my aunt for this matter. I can see that she finds it difficult to tell, but she should not feel that I have no right to know about this. I told my mother the information I have got, and my mother added some missing points for me from her perspective. I think this is also a rare experience for my mother just like me, because there are many things that she had only vague impressions of, but under my retelling, she gradually remembered a lot of details, and also came up with many points that could only be discovered afterwards. We talked for a long time that night. Not only about grandma, but also about feelings, about life. I think that night, my mother and I both grew up a little bit.