The last kindness of an old man
Fang Guifu's goodwill continues to emerge.
When he was 93, living in a nursing home, he found 73 passbooks contained in iron boxes, envelopes, and zippered bags from an old gray suitcase, all of which were donated to the school where he worked.
When asked "how many years have these passbooks been saved", he, who stopped talking due to his early deafness, wrote on the paper: "Half life." At the end of December that year, he turned out 12 more passbooks and donated them.
That was on November 16, 2014.
This retired teacher from Hebei Cangzhou Vocational and Technical College (hereinafter referred to as Cangzhou Vocational College) wrote his will on a piece of paper with a yellow border before this.
The will requires that after his death, he was "cremated, and his ashes were scattered in the canal", and his deposits were "all used for scholarships or poverty alleviation work, and clothes and quilts were used for poverty alleviation."
That winter, Li Bin, who had just been transferred to the Veterans Section of Cangzhou Vocational College as the section chief, first saw this old man who walked in to give his will in his office.
At that time, Fang Guifu estimated in his will that his deposit was "more than 300,000 yuan."
Later, people discovered that he had donated 85 passbooks, new or old, with deposits ranging from hundreds of yuan to tens of thousands, totaling nearly 400,000 yuan. This is the past 40 years, Fang Guifu has saved one by one. Down.
He only set aside 9,400 yuan for himself in case of emergency.
In the previous decades, Fang Guifu was a humble person.
The juniors who lived in the same yard also had a hard time finding special memories about him. They only knew that he was good in Russian, and they often gave the children a few pieces of candy, and they always lived alone alone.
He was unmarried all his life and had no children. In addition to paying for the nursing home every month, he would spend at most to buy some tobacco leaves for his often-blocked pipe pot, or buy some tea, and put it in his porcelain tea cup. .
Fang Guifu lived in a rudimentary house after retiring. Outside the table and chair bed, there was a torn quilt, some old clothes, an old suitcase that had been with him for many years, and two stacks of old photos.
Liu Weijin, the former vice chairman of the trade union of Cangzhou Vocational College, often went there to see him. He had seen Fang Guifu’s holed socks and the towels shared by wiping his face and feet. He knew that he often gave children in the park pocket money for them to use for their studies. He often picks up old clothes from old people who have passed away in nursing homes and wears them.
Fang Guifu loves to smoke and drink tea, but he has never changed his tea cup and pipe.
The nursing home belonged to the local government at first, but was later contracted to individuals.
"It seems that (conditions) are not as good as before." Liu Weijin persuaded him to change to a nursing home. Fang Guifu returned soon after he moved out. "He thinks that place costs a little more."
Liu Weijin did not expect that the money he saved would eventually be donated.
In April 2015, Cangzhou Vocational College used the donation to set up the "Fang Guifu Scholarship" to subsidize students with excellent academic performance but poor families, and also discussed helping him change to a nursing home with better conditions.
At the beginning, Fang Guifu refused. His bungalow only needs more than 1,000 yuan a month, and even better, 3,000 yuan.
He didn't agree to move to the elderly apartment until he learned that the old nursing home was going to be demolished, where there was a collective canteen and nurses.
One day after he settled in an apartment for the elderly, Fang Guifu suddenly asked Li Bin on a piece of paper: "Where is my quilt?"
The smoky torn quilt has been thrown away and replaced with a new one.
But Li Bin lied: "We washed it clean and gave it to the poor." Fang Guifu laughed.
"If you say it was thrown away by him, he must be unhappy." Li Bin said. She also learned later that after Fang Guifu retired, she took the initiative to move out of the school’s single dormitory. The reason was: The unit’s house."
In the eyes of several people who have come to see him in recent years, he is an old man with an extremely simple life and unwilling to trouble others.
In his later years, it was difficult for him to go out or downstairs alone. The caregiver pushed him and other elderly people in the nursing home into the hall every day. Others were talking and laughing, making noisy noises, and he sat quietly aside.
The caregiver found that he would make many teas once, and help him to pour out the tea overnight, which would make him angry.
In the past 6 years, Li Bin often visited him.
Most of the time, Fang Guifu sat on the rattan chair in the room on the 6th floor of the apartment, reading a book while basking in the sun.
His daily life is extremely simple, except for eating and sleeping, that is, smoking, drinking tea, or staying in thought.
Later, when she brought the book again, Fang Guifu waved his hand and said, "Don't bring it." His eyes had reached the point where he couldn't see clearly with reading glasses.
Every time he left, Li Bin always asked him what else he needed?
Fang Guifu mostly smiled and waved his hands to prevent her from spending money.
Once, Fang Guifu asked Li Bin to help buy some tea, and told her that it was available at Yaozhuangzi Daji.
Li Bin found a tea seller on the market, but she didn't know what the old man wanted.
She told the owner of the tea that she bought it for an old man.
The boss asked her if she was a tall and thin old man who couldn't speak, and hadn't come for a long time.
In the end, the boss took the "cheaper" from the stall.
Fang Guifu rarely buys cigarettes in packs, and often puts an old pipe pot in his mouth.
The pipe and pot were blocked, so he asked Li Bin to help him repair it, but she didn't know where to fix it. She planned to buy a new one, but Fang Guifu refused.
But Li Bin would help him replace the blocked pipe pot every time.
"Not enough", "enough" and "don't waste" are words he often writes on paper.
After Fang Guifu donated his life savings to poor students, Cangzhou Vocational College took good care of him.
After losing his teeth, he could only rely on his gums to chew food. The Polytechnic Institute bought him a blender for him to eat liquid food, and also bought protein powder to supplement his aging body.
In order to let him spend his twilight years in peace and not be so lonely, the Vocational College arranges subsidized students to visit him every Tuesday.
Student Ma Yupeng once found that there was unfinished cake on the old man's table, which was already moldy and he was reluctant to throw it away.
The carer found that as long as the children came, the old man was happy like a child.
In 2015, Fang Guifu was selected as one of the "Top Ten News Figures in Cangzhou", and in 2018 he was selected as the "China Good People List".
In January 2019, when Liang Yinghua, the deputy mayor of Cangzhou City, visited him in his apartment, he gave him a bonus of 10,000 yuan and wrote on the paper: "This bonus 10,000 yuan is for you. You can buy tobacco and tea. If you save it, you can't donate it. You have to use it yourself." Fang Guifu, whose hair has fallen out, wrote on the paper: "I can't use it. I can't waste it. Add some (newly saved) grants."
In recent years, Cangzhou Vocational College has received his successive donations totaling 517,930.17 yuan. By the end of 2020, a total of 78 students have received funding from the "Fang Guifu Scholarship" with a funding amount of more than 300,000 yuan.
Someone asked him, "Doesn't it hurt to donate all the money?"
He took up a pen and wrote: "Money is to work, and I must do this before I die."
His story was widely circulated by media reports. Some people used Tao Xingzhi's words to comment on him: "Carry a heart, not half a grass." His deeds also passed back to his hometown. This is just like his nephew Fang Jiwu. Knowing that his uncle is still alive, and there has been no news from Fang Guifu for more than half a century, the nephew wrote a letter to praise his uncle's behavior.
The 93 years of his life before he wrote his will have not attracted much attention.
The people around him pieced together his past with trivial information.
When he was young, he was admitted to the Department of Agricultural Economics of Jinling University, but at the age of 30 he was deaf due to illness. At the age of 36, he was transferred to the Agricultural Science Institute of Cangzhou City, Hebei Province (later merged into Cangzhou Vocational College) until he retired.
After retiring, he gave the rest of his life to a nursing home.
Many of his old colleagues have passed away, and his teeth have fallen out one by one.
On the morning of January 27, 2021, the 100-year-old passed away in Wansheng Senior Apartment in Cangzhou City.
When the old man was dead, the staff of the apartment asked on the paper whether to call them (Cangzhou Vocational College), and Fang Guifu waved his hand.
After his death, the staff of Cangzhou Vocational College found a deposit of more than 270,000 yuan in a passbook and a salary card left by him.
But Fang Guifu did not make any special arrangements for the money during his lifetime.
Cangzhou Vocational College intends to follow the old man’s will 7 years ago and put the money in the "Fang Guifu Scholarship".
China Youth Daily·China Youth Daily reporter Li Qiang Source: China Youth Daily