Where Is the Fragrance Deep in the Forest?

When I received the call that my grandma passed away, I hurried back to my hometown. During the long night of vigil, I opened the tin box that she had treasured throughout her life. It is filled with memories of grandma Afang's life. Starting from this box, I want to write her story. How A Fang, a young girl who took root in Zigong from Ziyang, became the mother of my mother Zeyu, my second uncle Ze'an, my third aunt Zelan, my fourth uncle Zehua and my brother Zejian, and how I became the grandmother to all of us. How to anchor this family firmly in the middle of the river of life with a meal and a piece of clothing in the turbulent years. This is our story too. About my mother, how she lived with the tenacity of a gardenia in the decades of fireworks; about my third aunt, how she lived a different kind of brightness with the fragrance of yellow orchids; about how our generation of grandchildren carry what flowed from her to a world she has never seen. The story begins with a farewell, but what I want to write about is a long reunion. Through her eyes, we can see how families and ordinary Chinese women from generation to generation silently and tenaciously bloom their own flowers in the long river of destiny. The iron box was very light and could not contain more than eighty years of her life. But perhaps, it can be a portal that allows us to walk into those forgotten times and touch the warmth and power that has never dissipated.