The ending of the story is set, but the narrative style can be chosen.

People Who Unintentionally Want to "Say Goodbye"

The most contact I had with an uncle was during a summer vacation when he was repairing our house; he had just turned fifty, working under the scorching sun with an average temperature exceeding 37 degrees, wearing a sun hat, laying one brick at a time.

The clothes he wore were dried overnight after being soaked the day before.

According to him, the house he built for over thirty years would be his last. I felt fortunate and couldn't help but look forward to his future life.

His home is in the county town, where he chose a location after taking some detours in his youth, and now its value has multiplied several times. Although it is not in a bustling area, it is several levels higher than ours. The main reason is its proximity to the best high school in the county.

He didn't receive much education, but by that summer, all three of his daughters had worked for two years, interned at university, and just received admission letters from key universities. Moreover, during the summer vacation, he mentioned he was preparing to buy a car.

It was supposed to be the beginning of a very happy life after suffering for most of his life.

However, during this year's Spring Festival, when my aunt (his wife) came to celebrate the New Year, when we asked why he didn't come, she smiled and said he went to another place; he was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago.

It had only been half a year since he stood alive in front of me.

My contact with my cousin can be roughly divided into three stages.

The first was at his wedding, where he wore a sharp suit and could make everyone laugh while toasting at each table; he was in his prime, and the bride was particularly beautiful.

A few years later, at my grandmother's house. By then, I had heard he was suffering from epilepsy, and after going to several major hospitals without any effect, he could only stay at home to recuperate. He looked much duller, with no energy on his face, and several of his front teeth had been knocked out from falling on the stairs during an episode.

During one of our conversations, he suddenly had an episode and fell off the stool. Although my mother and I reacted quickly, we still saw him hit the ground with a "thud." Then he rolled his eyes, foamed at the mouth, and his whole body twitched uncontrollably, no matter how much we tried to hold him down. It took nearly a minute for the convulsions to lessen, and he slowly recovered. When he sat back on the stool, he kept fidgeting with the zipper of his jacket...

A few years later, on the fifth day of the New Year, he came to our house to celebrate with his uncle, wearing a cotton jacket with the zipper open, revealing an old, slightly short sweater. His skin was much darker than before, and there were several scars on his face. When he saw me and the family around, his eyes showed a lot of unease; he sat briefly at home, drank a glass of water, and left without saying a word.

His children were there too, and I asked him where his mother was. He replied that she hadn't been back for a long time, still smiling.

My second aunt benefited from marrying a capable and hardworking husband; when I was very young, they already had a litter of pigs. Now they only do some small business at home, like selling fruits and making tofu.

Her eldest daughter married into a good family, her second son is in business, and her two younger sons, aged five and six, stay at home with her. The youngest son just brought a girlfriend from another place home last Spring Festival.

I returned from school and heard my mother say she suddenly collapsed and died despite rescue efforts. Just a week before, I had seen her at the market buying things with her grandson, and I had walked up to her for a conversation.

I only provided a brief summary of these three tragic stories; in fact, there are many details that are often hard to start talking about.

They are all representatives of the lowest level of life regarding fate. They shouldn't be, yet they live in a way that they shouldn't.

But in fact, many stories like theirs often happen in rural areas.

Many things come suddenly, and I didn't know that a hurried farewell could turn out to be a farewell for a lifetime.

I can't help but sigh:

The alternation of dawn and dusk repeats, and life struggles between day and night. On the road ahead, we all face a question: life may end at any moment, and misfortune may follow. All dreams and expectations, fame and fortune, hardships and failures will disappear at the moment of death. So since we come and go with nothing, what reason do we have not to face life calmly? — 2015,02,24 "I Want to Remember These People"

The Dilemma of Being Born in the Countryside

There is no concept of regular health check-ups, no public security, and in case of emergencies, calling 120 may be too late by the time the ambulance arrives...

This is the rural environment;

But even under such conditions, city people still hold many misconceptions about children from the countryside. For example: faces covered in dirt, tattered clothes, timid, introverted, weak, and reclusive representations.

Birth is not a choice; if given a choice, I believe most of them would not wish to grow up in such an environment.

At the age of fifteen or sixteen, or even younger, they have to leave their hometown and start living alone in another place. Jobs are unstable, but they revolve around manual labor, carpentry, hardware, service, security...

Their demands and hopes for society are small; they do not aspire to the so-called decent jobs and high quality of life that city dwellers desire—I don't know if this can be considered a virtue or if it stems from their own humility and compromise.

Their social circles are so narrow that whenever they see someone in a shirt walking towards them, they have to show a shy expression.

They may not have many opportunities to experience unforgettable romances, usually arranged through introductions, dowries, banquets, moving in together, sleeping together, and then they are together...

After that, they have children; the man works in another place while the woman stays home to take care of the child. Once the child is weaned or can walk on their own, they hand the child over to the man's parents. Both parties work in another place, sending part of their monthly salary back to support their parents and raise their children. They only return home for a few days a year, like during the Spring Festival, or take their children to stay with them at their workplace for a while during the summer vacation...

This way of life has been passed down since modern times in rural areas. The best outcome I can see is that the man stays steadily in a factory for ten or twenty years, saving money to send back home, buying good food and clothes for his children, allowing them to have a good reputation at school, and even some getting into key universities. Although they cannot achieve a life of luxury with houses and cars, living a stable life is still more than enough. When they grow old and are laid off by the factory, their social security may have been completed, and they won't burden their children much; their lives will feel like completing a task.

However, parents with such diligence and ambition are not the majority; for most of them, the relationship with their children is more like: by helping raise their grandchildren, they earn their own retirement funds. If viewed more thoroughly, it resembles a transaction: parents give birth to children, raise them with the expectation of being taken care of in their old age; when the children grow up, they do not want to take care of their parents but want their parents to help them free up time to take care of their own children.

Without faith, there is no gratitude.

This applies not only to rural children but also to many young people in society. For them, aging parents.

Going off on a tangent, writing this piece cares more about two points: first, most people would rather care about the trivial matters of celebrity gossip than the turbulent inner worlds of ordinary people around them.

The second point is that Zhang Jiajia once said: we cannot change the ending of the story, but we can change the way it is told. However, what I want to express more here is that although most story endings are beyond our control, it does not prevent us from playing a more positive role in them.