The Years That the Uncle Endured

"I can still carry another two hundred pounds." This is my uncle's most common mantra. He indeed spent twenty years carrying a college student, a two-story building, a newborn, and the most basic survival and life of a family. Before the Spring Festival of 1998, my parents died when I was 12 years old, and my father decisively took on the responsibility of raising me. Under the auspices of the family, my name for him changed from Yaoba to Uncle. In order to support the family, the uncle went to the quarry to carry stones. The uncle used his flesh and blood to endure heavy manual labor. He bought a motorcycle in half a year and built a building in two years. Later, the uncle went to the tile factory to push coal, then to burn kilns, and finally he was laid off after switching from coal to gas. During this process, I have completed my college studies step by step. After I started working and falling in love, my uncle fully supported me in buying a house in the provincial capital. He said that I didn't come back to the countryside to support you in college. Until the uncle could no longer carry it, he refused to go to the city to let me take care of him in my old age because he had his own inheritance philosophy. This is not a sensational story, nor is it a story that promotes so-called selflessness. It is just a memorabilia of an ordinary rural man trying to use his body, his only capital, to exchange for a better life for his family and to shoulder his own responsibilities.