On the eve of Prince Philip's funeral, the Queen sent a photo of her favorite two. (Source Network)
Main Seeding/ Natsushi, Distribution/ Gonchichi, 1967, Chunichi Co-Pruning
Wen | Wish Yu Jie
Edited, designed| West Brain Bag Flower
My grandmother died in the winter at the beginning of this year, 99 years old, no serious illness, natural death, and Prince Philip, born in the same year, lived to the same age, we all thought that she would definitely have her own hundredth birthday, and like Philip, she died in her sleep in the morning.
Although this is gone, there is less opportunity to give the living a few words, but for the deceased, perhaps the most complete way - no need to lie in the ICU with various tubes in the guilt, no need to go through the form of electric shock rescue, do not have to stop those who are crying and sad to come to see the last look - I always feel that the kind of visit to the dying person is very cruel.
Stills from the Korean movie "Grandma Ji Chun".
Death is not an accident for most people, it is not a matter of instantaneous completion, death is a process, the process is best easy, natural, and not to cause trouble.
The death she longed for most should have been achieved in this way, falling leaves and returning to the roots, dying in her own home, lying on her familiar bed, just as usual, just having a dream that would not wake up.
She used to envy the old people who took a nap, or ate a full meal, and left with their heads crooked, which is what I could tell what she wanted—in her words, "not very guilty."
But there was only one wish that no one could help her fulfill—she had repeatedly stressed during her lifetime that she should never be cremated. Cremation in her eyes is the sin after death, people have suffered enough sin when they are alive, why should they be tortured in the furnace when they die. But policies are like military orders, and no one dares to disobey them. But in order to reassure her, her father and uncle could only nod their heads in agreement every time, but everyone knew it and did not speak. Thinking of this, I can only say that Grandma is sorry. She didn't speak because Grandma, despite her age, was deaf and blind. Once, when my father and uncle said something secret, she overheard it.
I have very few memories of my grandmother and very little time spent living together. She gave birth to a large family, children and grandchildren, and the branches and leaves were scattered, too spread out, and it was a little difficult to gather. Since she has many children and grandchildren who can get along, I am not a boy, and I am thousands of miles away from home, how to look like an outsider to the Zhu family, naturally there is less of a sense of close connection. Compared with my grandmother, I know too little about my grandmother's story, and I also fantasize about hearing some stories like "Meng Mother's Three Migrations" and "Three Niangs' Godsons", but unfortunately, Grandma and Dad don't tell, nor do they tell Grandpa's stories.
In my memory, Grandma was never young, and from the beginning of my memory, she was an old man's face, white hair and ears, a pair of calloused hands (I didn't like her touching me), a wrinkled face, skin like scrub paper, and large and irregular front teeth. The reunion time is always at the dinner table, the food is abundant, but she does not like to eat too much.
It is not a picky eater, she only picks one or two plates of like hard work, the appetite is strong, you can hold up a large bowl of noodles, you can also eat a big steamed bun, look at the appetite is not like the old lady, but very much like a young guy eating. After eating, she basically does not add meals, and she has never seen her eat snacks, eat three meals regularly, have a fixed schedule, and do eye exercises before going to bed.
She has a favorite dish, scrambled eggs with toon sprouts.
In the spring, this little old lady is full of life, and she has to hold the pole to play toon, which is particularly energetic. The pole is an iron hook at one end, as long as it is clever, the toon is broken, if she can't reach it, she will move the ladder and carry the chair, and she is very determined not to give up.
Fresh toon tastes great, fried out is not beautiful, I did not like it when I was a child, I felt that there was an evil smell, I don't know why adults like to eat. Vegetables, melons and fruits have a particularly heavy taste, such as fennel, such as carrots, such as stinky tofu, which I did not accept at that time. Grandma ate very well, and I am sure that I am even more estranged from her, and I feel that we have an insurmountable gap.
I have a lot of knowledge or common sense of life from novels, I have read back to Jia Pingwa said, toon scrambled eggs, is the best food in the world. I thought to myself, turtles, and so many delicious things, hamburgers taste more normal than this thing.
But the taste of this thing is also very unreliable. As an adult, I actually think this thing is particularly delicious, is it possible that the genes of taste will not appear until people grow up?
The turning point was one spring, when my friend and I went to climb the Wild Great Wall, and when we came out, our legs were weak, we were hungry, there was nothing on the side of the road, and finally we saw some of the signs posted on the entrance of some yards that were farmhouse dishes. We sat on the pony, the first recommended on the menu are all toon, what toon fried bacon, toon mixed with tofu, are just beaten in the spring, eggs are under the chicken. My friend said he wanted to try it, so he ordered one.
The first bite I took was amazed, out of my soul, and I actually ate a whole pie and drank a stomach full of green tea. It was delicious, but I got angry at it – I didn't expect such good food to be enjoyed by grandma alone in the past, and she never marketed it to me. Angry here, I actually think that Grandma is a selfish person. Later I felt that I was wrong, it was not selfishness, it was that she rarely interfered in other people's lives, and she rarely bothered about other people's things, and sometimes she would ask about your study or work like other elderly people, but it felt like it was just a polite process, and she wouldn't really jump or persuade you. The heart is big, and I think this is also the secret of her longevity. Although Grandma is a person who came out of the old times, this blood relationship is quite modern.
Later, when I came home, I was clamoring to eat, and the adults were still very happy, as if they had finally verified the family's blood connection. (Recently, I saw a news report that a middle-aged man who did not have the same taste as his family, liked to eat spicy snail powder, became suspicious, and found that he was abducted and sold after a DNA test.) ）
Grandma cherished the toon that her family planted, and when it grew on someone else's roof, she also wanted to get it back. I later learned that many of the trees outside were actually Ailanthus trees, and although they looked alike, they tasted very different. In order for me to eat the tender toon, the family picked it early and put it in the refrigerator with various preservation techniques.
The toon was carefully removed, as if it were ganoderma lucidum. Seeing Grandma's calculating appearance of tinkering with toon, I suddenly felt that the gully on her face was not difficult to see, with the breath of the fairy wind Dao bone.
This year's spring is finally warming up on these days, and Grandma has been dead for two months. The toon in my yard has grown, although it has not been reminded, it was consciously picked by my mother, fried toon tempura for me a few times, and fried eggs several times, when eating, a fragrance was contained in the mouth, and it could not be dispersed for a long time.
Taste brings synesthesia. It's a little fantastic, it turns out that every food will make you think of a person. Carrying memories of people with food, the stomach is warm.
I remember reading The Outsider in the past, where Meursault's deceased mother was buried, and he didn't cry or ask to open the coffin for the last look, and thought it wouldn't make sense. Because of these actions, he was seen as an indifferent, anti-social person, and even later identified as a murderer by a judge.
My dad used to be unable to stand the crying at the funeral, and every time he had to quietly say to me, "After death, it is better to cry hard than to have a glass of water at the front of the life." "The same is true of the real world, we have stubborn conventions about death, for marriage and funeral, we must do this, we must have such feelings, otherwise we will be regarded as aliens."
But I hope that the sad and painful in life can also be accepted in a warm and peaceful way, without the need to perform grief, but only to feel and miss in their own way.
Just like, a plate of scrambled eggs in the spring is my family's affection, eat a bite, a lot of the past will come back.
The nostalgia for the departed is the eternal warmth in the memory, stills from the source movie "The Mortician".
Author: Zhu Yujie.
The illustrations in this article are provided by Zhang Dajing except for the annotations, and the copyright belongs to the original author.
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