33. Memorial service
This Spring Festival is somewhat abnormal, it is a long rainy season. The rainy weather that has been continuous since the beginning of winter did not stop during the Spring Festival.
On the first day of the first year, my mother prepared me with cooked chicken, fish, a thick piece of large tofu and some incense candles. Because my brother spent the New Year in the county town, my brother could not go home until noon, and they could only wait until the afternoon to worship their father.
In fact, Chinese New Year's Eve that night, my mother still hoped that my brother could stay at home, after all, my father had only died for so long. However, there is no way to do it, the brother is also relying on the relationship between the sister-in-law and uncle, only to get such a fat difference in the county, Chinese New Year's Eve at night, I still have to go to the sister-in-law's uncle's house.
My mother didn't know when to get up, only that when I was still asleep, she was already busy in the kitchen. When I went downstairs, my mother had already prepared the sacrifice items and placed them neatly in the basket.
I finished washing, rubbed my somewhat lax eyes, and then tied the basket to the back of the motorcycle, covered it with a tarpaulin, and set off in the misty drizzle. Before leaving, my mother kept telling me, "On rainy days, you must pay attention to the safety of the road." "I'm all told.
The place where my father was buried is still a little far away, which is the Taiping Village adjacent to us. Because there are many mountains in that village, the burial place of the elderly people in the vicinity is naturally chosen in that area. Of course, it is more the reason for the so-called Mr. Feng Shui, what dragon's den, tiger's den, anyway, I don't understand, those are all arranged by my brother.
Due to the drizzle for many days, most of the roads in the countryside are still primitive dirt roads, and the roads are muddy along the way. I rode carefully along the dirt path into the village, and the deep tire marks turned the mud over to form a natural ditch, and the yellow muddy water filled the ditch. The motorcycle was rocking left and right, and by the time I reached the uphill road at the foot of the mountain, my pants were covered with a lot of yellow mud.
Still, along the way I saw people in my side, riding motorcycles with sacrificial objects strapped to the rear. It seems that those who die will still remember that the customs that have been handed down for thousands of years are naturally observed by everyone.
When I came to the foot of Victoria Peak, I found that there were already a lot of motorcycles parked at the eaves at the foot of the mountain. I looked up at the dirt road full of yellow mud up the hill, and it seemed impossible to ride up the hill. So I found a family and wanted to park my motorcycle at his house, and I pushed the motorcycle into a yard where several motorcycles were already parked. I carefully walked into the master's house with my raincoat, and when I walked to the door of the master's house, an old man was coming out of the hall, saw me, and before I could say, "Go up and be careful, it rains these days, and the yellow mud road is slippery." I went up, handed the old man a cigarette, thanked him, and then I took the basket full of sacrifices from the back seat of the motorcycle, left the courtyard, and walked along the path next to the family toward the mountain.
As I walked down the road, I suddenly wondered if the family was the so-called fox monster that often appeared on TV. However, when I looked back, the house was still there, and the inexplicable heart fell again. "A monster would be a young and beautiful girl!" I shook my head alone as I walked with the basket, and I didn't know why I suddenly remembered the strange ghost stories in the chat. At this moment, looking at the densely packed graves on the left and right sides, looking at the empty mountains, such thoughts became more and more intense.
The road up the mountain is difficult to walk, because it is a yellow mud road and rain, coupled with the fact that many people have come up the mountain to worship before the Chinese New Year's Eve, the middle of this not very wide mountain road has been trampled on the potholes, even the wild grasses that have survived tenaciously in winter on both sides of the road have also been trampled to the east and west, and some wild grasses are also covered with a layer of yellow mud rubbed off the soles of shoes.
I carefully climbed this path to the land of the dead, which was not very far but also took me quite a long time. The deeper you go, the dirt gets better because there are fewer pedestrians walking by, and you can walk on the wet grass next to you to avoid the deep yellow mud. Inside the mountain, the sound of firecrackers can already be faintly heard.
I walked in the direction of my father's grave, and the scene of sending my father up the mountain not long ago is still vividly remembered, and after a loud cry, it has been forever one in the human world and one underground, and before that, my father was still nagging about the events of my life, and he sat on the high table in the hall while drinking wine, muttering and muttering to me as if it had happened yesterday. Thinking about it, at that time, I was so tired of that nagging, that kind of expression, but now, I couldn't see it, and I couldn't hear it when I wanted to hear it. Thinking about it, I can't help but feel a surge of sadness in my heart.
When I came to my father's grave, I suddenly froze. Looking at the newly carved tombstone, looking at my father's name on it, I choked up and said anything. At that moment I suddenly understood the meaning of many things before. When I was a child, my father brought me to worship my grandfather, and when I was a grandmother, I always felt nothing when I looked at my father's sad expression. Grandpa, I have never seen the appearance of my grandmother, except for the old white and yellowed photo, and their graves are almost all together (it seems that my father and uncle led them to a grave during the period), and what people lived in those graves, I don't know a single one, I don't know what they look like, I don't know their personality, they don't know what kind of people I am, they seem to know nothing about each other. And every time, my father would always place it in this grave pile for a while, and the grave pile would be placed for a while, pour three glasses of wine, and then say a few words to himself.
To be honest, every time I looked at my father so seriously, even sadly, at that time, I didn't feel too sad in my heart. Because I feel that everything is just a show, and everything doesn't mean much. Those chicken and fish offerings, no matter how many times they are placed, will not be eaten by us in the end, and the fragrant wine that is placed up will not be carefully poured back into the bottle by the father and then drunk by himself. Everything seems meaningless, everything seems superfluous.
However, at this moment, when I put the chicken, fish and tofu in place, my heart was full of emotions, and I suddenly seemed to understand my father's mood at that time. Not long after my father's grave was erected, the small hill that protruded was still the color of primitive yellow mud, and only a few thin dry grasses lay on it, but after the long cold and rain this winter, it seemed to be a little weak, but I did not know whether I could see them grow vigorously in the next year.
According to my mother's instructions, after the memorial service, I raised my head and looked around, and my father's new grave looked different in the middle of the grave.
I looked up at the sky, took off the hat of my raincoat, and let the tiny rain hit me coldly in the face. Then, I picked up a piece of yellow soil on the new grave with my hand, and a strong sadness inevitably surged into my heart, and I sobbed secretly. At this point, I would really rather believe that there is a past life or this life, and perhaps this blank of loess that I am holding is mixed with the dust that has melted into the dust of the body of the previous life.
I looked at the sky, silent for a long time, and before I knew it, my face was full of tears, mixed with rain.
I got up from my knees and looked at the mountains in the distance. The sky, gray, far away, a lot of sky.
According to my mother's instructions, I placed the offerings in front of the two nearby graves for a while, and then inserted three pillars of incense in front of the left and right graves, and then knelt down and made three strokes. Although I knew that this incense candle would certainly not burn out in this kind of weather, I hoped that they could all taste a little of our hearts in the sun, and then put a firecracker that was not very long, and when it was finished, they were ready to leave.
When I was packing up my things, I learned what I had seen before, and I wanted to pour the three glasses of wine placed in front of my father's grave back into the bottle, but after thinking about it, I poured the wine into my father's grave, and in an instant, the wine mixed in the rain and seeped into the soil. Suddenly, I poured out all the bottles of wine prepared by my mother, thinking that this time I would let you get drunk.
Descending the hill, we came to the courtyard of the old man, who was sitting in the hall leaning against a chair, smoking a shisha that only anyone in their time would like to smoke.
I smiled and nodded in thanks to him, and he grinned at me, a mouthful of sparse teeth on display.
"A rainy new month." I lowered the hood of my raincoat, glanced at the annoying rain, and shook my head.
"Oh, there will always be once or twice in a few years, who can guess the temper of the god lord." When speaking, it is still that kind smile, still such a faint tone, the expression is still so kind, so kind, let people feel an inexplicable closeness. With that, he took the pipe case out and knocked it on the corner of the chair next to him, changed the tobacco, and re-lit it, Taba, and Taba continued to smoke a few sips.
"Yeah, once or twice in a few years." I tied the basket to the back seat of the motorcycle, started the engine, and used the momentum of the motorcycle to say to him loudly: "Thank you, Happy New Year!" ”
"Uh, uh, Happy New Year!" The old man answered with an open mouth and a big laugh.
Walking home, I don't know why, the phrase "Happy New Year" always echoed in my mind for no reason.
Yes, I had never told him before, and I hadn't even told him just now.
"Happy New Year!" I rode on a motorcycle and said to myself somehow, I don't know who I said this to, maybe to him, maybe to myself, in short, no one will hear, only the former existence that disappeared into the rain remained...