Director of the Department of Pain at Beijing Tsinghua Chang Gung Hospital affiliated to Tsinghua University, and head of the hospice team
Associate Professor, School of Chinese as a Second Language, Peking University
Former veteran media personality, writer Qingming special
"Man lives, except for the fear of death, the greater fear, is the hardship of life.
Only by having a sufficient understanding of death can we live more seriously and face all the relationships in life more seriously. ”
Editor's Note
It's another year of Qingming.
To set the festival of remembrance of life in a season of revival of all things must have the unspeakable wisdom of the ancestors.
This spring of this year, mankind not only continues to fight with the epidemic, but also witnesses the smoke of war and the loss of life.
So, how to face life and death? How to cherish life? In the unprecedented great changes and unpredictability, how to weave their own "web of meaning"? This will be a topic that everyone cannot avoid.
This clarity, let's talk frankly together, or fall into deep thought.
The customs of the Qingming Festival are different in different places and in different homes, and the ceremonial atmosphere is also different, or sad, or peaceful, or solemn, or lively... What is the way you personally agree with the commemoration?
Lu Guijun: Traditional Chinese culture emphasizes "pursuing the distant in the end with prudence, and returning morality to the people", which is intended to establish a connection with the ancestors and not forget the teachers of the past life. Some family training and the instructions of the elders should be repeatedly given an explanation to him. I often tell our patients, "The first belief is that one's parents are parents." "Faith, trust and look up in the heart. So my favorite word for Qingming Festival is "remembrance", missing because of love, remembering because of affection, and spending this day together in love and affection.
Chen Li: I am a person who does not pay much attention to form and ritual, but I can follow the customs. Qingming Festival generally does not deliberately go back to the hometown to visit the grave, but once back to the hometown just in time, I followed the family to "do qingming" together - offering flowers, burning incense, burning paper, worshipping... If the relatives have died soon, the atmosphere must be more sad. After a long time, it will be peaceful. Generally in front of the cemetery are more solemn, but there is no lack of light words on the way to and from. For me, the general form is as easy to understand and accept, but the most recognized way for individuals to commemorate is to do it with their hearts.
Song Yan: My parents were thorough materialists, and several of our children were deeply influenced by them, believing that after death, consciousness disappears, the body becomes an organism and returns to nature, and is re-transformed into other life in atomic and molecular form. Therefore, I think only life is important. The people around him should try to be as kind as possible to him when he is still alive, and how to bury and sacrifice after death is no longer meaningful. What people will miss is the impact this person had on others before he was born, and what he deserves to remember. Just like the cartoon "Dream Quest", the memory he produces in people's hearts is the continuation of his life, and when this memory is gone, he is completely "dead". In this sense, it is not important whether it is clear or not, ritual is not important, memory is important. And memory, at any time, on any occasion, can be picked up at any time.
Tell us about the experience of sending off your life the most?
Lu Guijun: Because I have been engaged in life and death education for more than 20 years, every time I am close to Qingming, it is the time when my "exposure rate" is the highest. On the Qingming Festival in 2019, I was just relieved to read some reports about my work in the morning, but I didn't think that at 10 o'clock I saw the news that a patient in the south had jumped off a building and committed suicide this morning. He's a chronic pain patient, a very good director, and he called me on April 1 through "Good Doctor." A life dies like this, and he is a participant in the healing process, but he fails to keep him. I felt particularly upset and couldn't forgive myself.
I bought a plane ticket to fly to that city the same day, and his sister picked me up. My sister, a medical colleague of ours and an associate professor at Wenzhou University, met her and said, "Dr. Lu, you are a very well-known hospital and an influential expert in China. You and my brother are not related, he has an accident, you flew thousands of miles away. With this time and energy, you study your medical skills and cure him, will he still be like this? "Very harsh and ruthless. I said, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I don't know what went wrong yet, but I'm willing to apologize first. I just wanted to know what was wrong. ”
Later, going back to his phone records a few days ago, he said "the pain was 80% better, but there have been some bad thoughts lately". I wasn't alert enough to say", just saying "everything will be fine" without more communication. To this end, I wrote a "Pain Farewell Qingming", which pains us as doctors, and we should understand every life more. I remember a patient who said to me at the end of his life, "Do you know why you are called angels in white?" It is because when I am in pain, wandering, and helpless, you appear like the shadow of an angel's wings in the sun, giving me a feeling of warmth, comfort, and security. That's why later I always stressed that the healer should "heal the wounds of the living and speak for the deceased", which is the deepest feeling for that farewell.
Chen Li: Shortly after I started working, my mother died of lung cancer. I took care of her for half a month before she left, she was only 54 years old at the time, and I could feel how much she didn't want to leave. Even though she was suffering in pain every day and night, she still wanted to live and watch her children get married and have children one by one. As strong as my desire to help her was, my sense of powerlessness was strong—I could neither save her nor dispel her fear of death. As a result, I became suspicious of my own knowledge structure, and I realized that in addition to the knowledge of the school, the knowledge of life needs to be explored and learned.
Song Yan: As we get older, more people are being sent away. Today, I have several names in my address book that I never hear from again. They had all kinds of connections with me when they were born, and it was a strange body for me to go. So any farewell, I don't feel too deeply. But some of them, I think about it often, think of things we've been through together, about some point in his/her life. In fact, most people you meet in life will only leave a few moments in your memory. These few moments constitute the intersection of your lives, and they are also the wealth of life he has left you.
If you have a life around you that you can't let go of for a long time, how do you heal yourself?
Lu Guijun: Then don't let go. It's been four years since my second sister died, and she's two years older than me. I never felt that she was gone, and if there was anything I wanted to tell my second sister, I still sent her WeChat. I know what she cares about me, what she thinks about every day, and I know how she will respond to me.
Chen Li: After my mother died, I have been sad for almost a year. Once I dreamed that she was seriously ill, and then she woke up crying. But fortunately, in addition to sadness, I have another question - what is the end of death. I specifically looked for books on "death", and gradually gained a deeper understanding of people, life, life, life and death, and my heart was unconsciously broadened. Now, I still miss my mother a lot, but my heart is no longer sad. I think my mother will be relieved to see the way I am now.
Song Yan: I'm not sure if someone will make me unable to let go in the future. At least so far, I have accepted the loss of my life. This is a law of nature and will not be changed by the will of man.
If you were to confront your child, how would you answer "What is death?" "Such a question?
Lu Guijun: Children, especially before the age of 6 and a half, have not yet formed a sense of personal independence. Even if this kind of child comes to the end of his life, he still needs to solve his life in the game. We told him that all kinds of cartoon characters such as the little white rabbit and the big bad wolf had become little angels.
A nurse colleague once told her that a child in kindergarten "dies and disappears." Mom will die, So will Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa will die." The child does not dry, does not sleep at night, does not relax with his arms around his mother, does not let his mother go to work the next day, and still does not let him on the third and fourth days. Later I told her to try it next time she said, "Mom is now sending you to school every day, picking you up from school, buying you candy and beautiful clothes, and telling you stories at night." One day your mother will become a beautiful angel in heaven, watching you go to school, after school, telling you stories in your dreams at night, paying attention to your growth every moment, this is death. ”
Chen Li: Because my family has died, I have talked about "death" with my children many times. I'll make them think about coins, life and death are like two sides of a coin, they come together. I also asked children to observe a tree — in the spring, the branches of the tree began to sprout and then turn green. Autumn has arrived, and the leaves have turned yellow and fallen to the ground. Are the leaves "dead"? It turns into dirt and becomes nutrients. When the branches and leaves of the tree begin to sprout again in the spring, will there be any of it? Such "death metaphors" are generally easy for children to understand and are acceptable to children.
Song Yan: Death is an integral part of life, and there is life and death, and nature flows in this way. For the individual, death is the inevitable end. Therefore, before reaching the end, we must experience and appreciate the world as much as possible. In this way, whenever you come to the end, you can tell yourself, "I have lived well."
Wu about life and death, please recommend a book or film and television work that most inspires you, why?
Lu Guijun: My good friend Teacher Lu Xiaoya wrote a book called "I Am a Mother to My Mother". When our grandparents and relatives are dying of old age and cannot take care of themselves, we should learn to "be a mother to our mother" and use this warmth to feed our elders.
Chen Li: The story of Master Hongyi (Li Shutong). What kind of situation made him write the "intersection of sorrow and joy"? What do these four words mean? Why was he able to explain the aftermath so clearly half a month before his death, and even thought of how to avoid insects and ants from being burned to death when cremation? Why did he die in an "auspicious bed" (right side bed) instead of lying like a normal person? ...... How does one meet death so calmly? Many people have a more intuitive understanding of the legendary and great life of Master Hongyi through the movie "A Round of Bright Moon", and many of them may be like me, who have been shocked by the departure of Master Hongyi so "calmly and solemnly".
Song Yan: When my daughter was young, I bought her a copy of "I Am Waiting for You in Another World.". It was a novel for children, about people who, after death, would grow upside down in another world, starting at the age of death, getting smaller and smaller, and finally becoming ignorant babies again, and being sent back to the world to start another life. The book is about a girl who died unexpectedly, missing her family in another world and re-experiencing the process of life. The book is simple, but very healing, and it feels like death is not only not a terrible thing, but a complement to life.
Sooner or later, everyone will face disease, aging, disability, and the end, in your opinion, what is the way and way to face the "fear of death"?
Lu Guijun: Face death squarely, because fear comes from ignorance. We often ask our patients, "Do you believe there is another world?" "90 percent said they didn't believe it. Ask again: "Do you want another world?" "90% say hope. If there is hope, there will be no despair, and if there is no despair, the pain will be less. The world does not change because we hope or not, so choose hope, which can soothe his heart and calm him.
Chen Li: The best way is to face death head-on and take advantage of the fact that you still have the physical strength and energy to find the answer. We can understand the thinking of our predecessors and continue to explore on this basis. When you "know what's going to happen," your fear begins to disappear because you know how to accept, prepare, and respond. In addition, a broad mind will also help to accept life, old age, illness and death, and when the "small self" is placed in the "big me", our lives will expand indefinitely.
Song Yan: Think firmly about the cycle of life. Man is not a special being, he is just a kind of creature, and from a natural point of view, we are not fundamentally different from the grasshoppers. If you want to understand this, you may not care so much about your own life - of course, this is just standing and talking without waist pain.
If you were the screenwriter of your own life's story, how would you design the end of this story?
Lu Guijun: I have been doing palliative care for so long and have witnessed so many lives lost. Several of the deceased saw me for the last time before they died and said, "Dr. Lu, thank you for taking care of me now." There is no return in this life, and when you cross the NaiHe Bridge after a hundred years, I will set up a banquet on the side of the Three Lives Stone to pick you up and not disperse. ”
I hope that my final end will be a heavenly burial, a complete return to nature. A few years ago, a patient died, he donated the cornea, and a year later he made ash sea sprinkles. His lover told me, "I never felt that our old horse had left this world, his eyes were looking at the world, and he would be able to see me at some point." And since I became a heisa, I feel that every drop of water is our old horse, and I am willing to hug every drop of water deeply, that is him. ”
Chen Li: An old man from a colleague's family, when he was alive, he was a Traditional Chinese medicine practitioner who hung pots and ji shi, and when he finally left, he was particularly free and walked, sitting on a chair. I think the old man's end game is good, there is no greed in his heart, his consciousness is not reversed, and he leaves in a dashing manner. I hope that I will be like this when the time comes, clear and clear, and it does not matter what posture. As for the ashes, it is necessary to dispose of them in a way that is as environmentally friendly and energy-saving as possible.
Song Yan: People think that they are the protagonists of the story, but is there a possibility that you are just a group performance? I want my story to be closer to quentin mode, saying that death "clicks" and dies, without foreshadowing, without twists, so that the reader of the story can not react, so that it is best.
Which of the three things do you think you are most proud of and "worthy of this life"? For the rest of your life, what are your personal dreams that reflect the value of your life?
Lu Guijun: If this is the end, I believe that the greatest honor in this life is that I understand what love is and what is most important to life. I want light where I exist, which is a beauty. Next, if life allows, earn a harmonious world for the people I love the most.
Chen Li: "The most worthy of this life", first, they basically grasp the general direction of life, several important turning points in the road of life are their own choices and decisions; second, they have always pursued to become a better person, basically maintain the habit of lifelong learning, look back at their own way of coming, and have always been accompanied by books; third, do things according to conscience, do their best to the people and things around them, and fulfill their duties. For the rest of my life, my dream is to let the wisdom of my heart shine out, and then do things decently.
Song Yan: The most worthy thing about this life is that I have lived to this day and have not done anything against my heart - to have such a life comes from luck, from not being forced by livelihood in this life; it also comes from "not being motivated" and not having excessive material requirements. Later life, if you can leave some memories worth remembering for a few people, it is a life worth satisfying.
Written (Lu Guijun part), invited by wu fei, reporter of this newspaper