When I was a child, on the Chinese Yuan Festival, which we called "July 15", we often accompanied my father to the family grave to burn paper, and also brought wine jugs and fruit offerings. At that time, the reason for actively going to the grave with my father was probably so that he could eat the fruit after the grave was completed.
Year after year, I grew up, and my father also passed through his life in illness, returning to the place he used to go to.
It was Qingming in 2016, and seeing his father's health deteriorating, he repaired the graves of his father and mother at the suggestion of his mother. At that time, my father agreed. People are alive but go to the graveyard to dig a pit, and the pit dug is actually ready to bury themselves, and it is difficult for me to imagine the feeling of my father at that time.
At noon when the grave was being dug and dug, the people who were looking for help went back to eat, and my father offered to watch in the cemetery, because there was a special note, the newly dug pit could not be dropped by any other animals, so he had to watch at the scene. So I took this picture of my father behind him. The back is the father, and the two pits are for the father and mother a hundred years later.
In August of that year, my father left forever and moved into a place that he had designed and measured himself. Since then, this has been a constant concern for me.
A few days before the holidays, my mother would always ask if she was free to come back to the grave for a few days? My brother and I always come back no matter what. Because when I go to the grave, I can get close to my father and remember the bits and pieces with my father.
It was the Zhongyuan Festival again, and my mother called me in advance to tell me that the paper had been bought, in fact, my mother must have been worried about my father in another world, just to show it in front of her son.
In fact, our family does not believe in the existence of ghosts and gods, and people die like lights out, what is there? However, since my father left, I prefer to believe in the existence of spirits, and if that happens, maybe my father can know how his son is doing over there and stop worrying about it.
On the other hand, even if it does not exist, through the Zhongyuan Festival burning paper as a carrier, to express the sacrifice and remembrance of the deceased relatives, to a certain extent, this is also a inheritance of Chinese traditional culture.
As for the fact that there are some places where burning paper is characterized as a superstition, I am skeptical. Feudal superstition should be the kind of jumping god, inviting wizards, etc., this kind of expressing mourning by burning paper to concretize, how can it become superstition?
There is also a saying that he was good to the old man before his death, and burned a thousand tons of paper after his past life, this is nonsense, is it good to the old man before death, and immediately after death, he forgot not to pay homage? What is the logic of this?