01.
In the blink of an eye, it was another qingming, and it was the season of herbs and herbs.
I don't know if this Qingming will have rain that will break the souls of pedestrians on the road.
What you know is that even if there is no rain on this day, people's mood is much better.
For sure, this Qingming will still go to the grave of his relatives to see, a bunch of flowers, a few sticks of incense, inserted in the incense burner in front of the tombstone of his relatives, lit, and then quietly wait for the incense to turn into ashes, this process can take about ten minutes.
Not hypocritically, just like this for ten minutes to accompany relatives who have walked far away to stand for a stop, sometimes they say two words, and sometimes they don't say a word.
The fragrant green smoke dissipated, and the distant mountains and near the water were hazy and clear.
I usually choose to either go a few days in advance or postpone it for a few days, and in any case I don't follow the crowd, because the dense crowd of people in the cemetery makes me feel a little bit of dense phobia.
There are several cemeteries to go to, and there are now more than thirty kilometers away from my home, qiao shan cemetery, where my parents are buried, and my father-in-law and mother-in-law, so I will definitely go. The other one is called Longshan Cemetery, where my second sister is buried, I can't forget her.
The eldest brother is in the middle of the mountains, it is no longer easy to find, the cemetery of the eldest sister and the eldest brother-in-law is in the collective forest cemetery where they stay, it is too far, hundreds of kilometers, no car can not go.
02.
At that time, when the epidemic was tight, all the cemeteries were closed, and only funeral related matters were received, and sacrifices were not available.
Now that the epidemic has subsided, seeing the notice of the cemetery, it is possible to make normal sacrifices.
The topic is always heavy, but you can't escape it. Walking and walking will disperse, and walking will not be found. This is the most real and cold life.
When I went to the beach this morning for a walk, I passed an intersection, exactly a T-shaped intersection, and saw several stalls of burnt paper ashes on the side of the road, and I estimated that in the coming week, the two sides of the road would be basically like this.
When I came back, walking into the gate of the community, a familiar neighbor carried a large bag of burnt paper, and I was a little confused: go to burn paper in the daytime? Just wanted to ask, people gave the answer, it turned out that his parents were buried in the mountains not far away, was going to go to the grave of their parents. My neighbor's legs didn't look so sharp, carrying a large bag of burnt paper and walking slowly. I told him to pay attention when burning paper, because the firewood and grass on the mountain are now very dry. He said there was a jar in front of the grave that specialized in burning paper.
03.
This life comes and goes in a hurry. In the end, it is all such an ending, the dust returns to the dust, from being to nothing. Many years ago, during the Tomb Sweeping Festival, I saw some people in the cemetery who came to offer sacrifices, carrying paper and paper horses, carrying virgin boys and girls, carrying cars and villas. There is also a grandfather who directly carries a young lady with a tie of flowers and branches, while walking this family is also giggling: this time to send so many things to our grandfather, the old man can blossom happily over there, enjoy my grandfather.
I almost laughed out loud when I listened.
The most powerful sacrifices I've ever seen are machine guns, bazookas. Merchants shouted loudly: Living and dying are not peaceful, all are the US empires to make trouble, buy one for relatives to defend themselves. The Us Empire has been in the mold for eight lifetimes, and it can't run away from the world's bad, which has stretched its claws into the underworld. People laughed at all this, and some people who made stems asked the store: Are there bullets? Yes and no! The shopkeeper bent down and took out a cardboard box, all kinds of ammunition. Thoughtful and well equipped.
Or some people feel uneasy: what if this thing is gone? A buddy next to him seems to be smiling: find a courier, do not feel at ease to go down and send it yourself.
Yes, the sacrifice that should have been serious was turned into an ode to joy.
To put it bluntly, it is to be a demon for the living to see. Is there anything else that makes sense?
04.
When your relatives are alive, you can be nicer to them and better, as long as you have a clear conscience, it is the best expression. No one is there, and it would be a farce to make such a scene.
Therefore, I think that thick and thin burial is a good mention.
In the early days of the epidemic, my wife and I went to Qiao Shan to worship our parents. In that place between my parents' cemetery and her parents' cemetery, the cemetery opened a new cemetery, which was very good to see. Madame said: This place is good, ask how much money it is, and we will buy a house behind ourselves. I looked at the cemetery and estimated that it was expensive. After the sacrifice was finished, I went to the cemetery management and asked how much the newly opened cemetery was, and the staff of the cemetery said: 250,000.
When I fled into the wilderness and escaped from the door, I said to everyone in a serious tone: Seeing that there is no reality is grim, since you can't afford to die, let's live well.
Before you die, what do you care about behind you? A mere life is a journey, to the station to get off that is the law, bully sitting and playing horizontal is not easy to use. When you are alive, you live yourself well, at least live like a person, and you don't waste your life, and you can also be worthy of the blood of your father and mother.
So, I told my son more than once that when I was gone, you would only be responsible for doing one thing, sending me to the end, paying the fee clearly, and not taking advantage of the country. After that, you will be free of ashes, or you will get a clay pot, and after receiving it, find an unobtrusive place, quietly bury it under the bushes, and it does not matter whether you remember it or not. But don't throw it into the sea, I think it means to pollute the sea.
05.
I don't know, and I don't want to know, what a person is after death.
Almost three years ago this spring, the last part of my trip to Sichuan and Chongqing was in Chongqing Chaotianmen by river ferry, down the river down the Yangtze River waterway, one of which said that the famous attraction is Fengdu Ghost Town, the boat to Fengdu, many people specially went to "see the ghost", I did not go, in fact, the reason is very simple: I can't live to see, what ghost to see?
Occasionally, after a blind fight with friends, they ask me if I believe in souls, ghosts. I said it was not a question of whether I believe it or not, that according to the immortality of matter, the transformation and conservation of energy, all death was nothing more than another transformation of life, perhaps from organic to inorganic, or something else, because it was not known so it was not delusional.
The only thing to know is to live in the moment and live in the moment.
There are so many things in this world that we don't know, so many things are simply not known.
Many years ago I bought an interesting book, Obituary Before Heaven.
The author of the book, a journalist who wrote obituaries for Princess Diana and Marlon Brando, Marilyn Johnson was obsessed with obituaries, obsessed with stories of people who had left this world, and obsessively studied why obituaries appealed to readers in this way. She read obituaries online every day, visited the obituary editors of the New York Times, attended the World Obituary Writers Conference, found the best obituary in the English language, savored the most mean and cultured obituary, and occasionally visited authors who specialized in obituary, delved into the obituary like a scholar, and compared the differences between the obituary, on the basis of which she wrote this book depicting the tradition and culture of the obituary.
This book is very interesting and fascinating. The author takes the reader through the history of obituary and the unusual lives that will not come to our attention until they disappear, and describes from a very interesting perspective the history and customs of the last course of mankind, the obituary.
I remember when a book critic talked about the book, he said something interesting: the author used his own way to call on everyone to die once. (to the effect)
Maybe it's downplayed, and everything is relaxed.
Wednesday, March 31, 2021