During the Spring Festival holiday, my wife and I were discussing where to go to play, and my wife said without hesitation, "Beijing!" "What? We have lived in Beijing for four years at university, and we can visit the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Thirteen Tombs, and the Great Wall of Badaling with our eyes closed. This time, we still want to go?" I immediately objected. My wife pointed to her stepmother's room and said, "Didn't you notice? A few days ago, when my mother was watching a TV movie showing the scenery of Beijing, her old man sighed and tears flashed in his eyes. This time, take her and the children, and we will go to Beijing together!" It was still the wife who was careful. After we reached a consensus, we took care of it, helped our stepmother, and took the child on the road.

My stepmother is in her seventies and has poor legs and feet. We bought a wheelchair for this trip. My stepmother is a primary school teacher. I don't remember exactly when she walked into our house. I can only remember that the family was very poor at that time. My father did not have a fixed occupation, and the family's life was supported by my stepmother's meager salary. When I was a child, I hated reading, and my academic performance was the bottom of the class. When my stepmother found out, she said to me: "Our family is poor. If you can go to school, you must cherish it. In the future, you will go to Beijing and go to university. If you have no culture or knowledge, how can you stand in society in the future?" The stepmother said while weeping. Although I still don't quite understand what my stepmother said, in order to prevent my stepmother from crying because of my poor studies, I worked hard to study, and as a result, I really formed an indissoluble bond with Beijing.

The year I went to college in Beijing, my father passed away, and my stepmother was the only one who could support the family and support me to go to college. I still can't imagine where my stepmother got so much money for my four years in college. Anyway, I was no worse at school than others. Every time I asked about it, my stepmother would casually say: "It was squeezed out of the gap between my teeth!" I looked up at my stepmother, who had become old and thin. The taste of "squeezing" made my throat and hair stand up and my heart ache.

We made a trip to the Badaling Great Wall. My stepmother sat in a wheelchair and I pushed her to the foot of the Great Wall. With her elbows against the armrests of the wheelchair and her palms on her cheeks, she looked carefully at the undulating Great Wall in trance. "Mom, let's go to the Great Wall together!" I said softly to my stepmother. She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with her hands and said, "My feet don't work. You go, I'll wait for you here." My wife and I discussed it for a while and said, "Mom, let's go together. With the three of us here, you can rest assured! We can't let you leave any regrets!" After saying that, we did not allow our stepmother to object, so we packed up the wheelchairs, and the wife carried the stepmother on the relatively gentle stone steps first. As she walked, she introduced the history and legends of the Great Wall to her stepmother. The stepmother nodded repeatedly.

The wall in front of me was relatively steep, so I replaced my wife, took my stepmother's back, and walked up step by step. We took a few steps and stopped to take a break. As we walked, I was exhausted and out of breath. The children followed me, silent, and often stopped to look at us quietly. I knew that at this moment, I was not just carrying my stepmother on the wall, but also explaining the truth of life to my children.

Seeing that I was exhausted enough, my stepmother said to me, "You're exhausted, let me go and rest before leaving." Tired is tired enough, but compared to my stepmother's more than ten years of parenting, what is this tiredness? I panted and said, "Mom, I... I'm not tired, we... hold on a little longer and we'll reach the top." After saying that, I continued to climb. My stepmother was anxious, so she patted my head with her hand and said, "Put me down, if you don't put me down, I'm going to hit you!" My stepmother didn't say "type" easily. If she said she wanted to hit, there must be no room for maneuver. I had to put my stepmother down in a relatively quiet place to rest.

As far as I can remember, my stepmother only hit me once. I remember when my family was poor, I took a fancy to a book called "Scientists Talk about the 21st Century," but I didn't dare ask my stepmother for money. Once, seeing a lot of scrap iron piled up in front of the iron factory not far from home, I secretly packed a bag in my schoolbag and went home thinking that I would sell it after a few days of calm weather, and then use the money to buy the book. When my stepmother found out, her face turned blue with anger. Without saying a word, she picked up a bamboo strip and beat me hard. After that, she pulled me to the portrait of my biological mother and said, "Kneel down! Promise your mother that you will never steal again!" I cried and said to my stepmother, "I was wrong, I will not dare to steal again!" Afterwards, my stepmother shed tears and helped me undress, wiping the whip marks on my back with "Wanhua Oil", saying, "Son, does it hurt?" I shook my head. My stepmother said, "Follow me to return the things to others later." I nodded. My stepmother packed up and walked with me to the iron factory. Along the way, she said to me, "We are poor but not short-lived. We must be upright and innocent. We steal needles when we are young and gold when we are big. If we take one wrong step on the crooked path, we will ruin our life!" After returning the things to the factory, my stepmother took money from her pocket and handed it to me, saying, "Take it and buy books." At dinner, I felt very guilty when I saw my stepmother eating only a little soy sauce bibimbap.

"Dad, let's keep going! The highest peak is ahead!" The excited cry of the child pulled me back from the memory. I looked at my wrinkled stepmother, carried her again, and continued to climb up step by step.

When we reached the beacon tower on the top of the mountain, the four of us were tired and breathless, but no matter what, our family finally came over. Looking back, we saw that the winding and undulating Great Wall under our feet stretched out into the distance, surrounded by red maple leaves, shining in the setting sun…