bucket list

Chapter 13 Funeral Party

A person goes from death to departure very quickly.

In traditional Chinese funerals, there is a theory of mortuary, and the coffin will be left at home for three to seven days before the funeral.The younger members of the family still need to keep watch. Sometimes this process is pure torture, and sometimes it is the best farewell.During funerals, lamps will be lit at home all night, attracting many huge moths and butterflies, who are regarded as longing relatives who have passed away, leaving scattered scales.

It's different now, with just one phone call, the funeral home will send someone to take the corpse away. Funeral hotline, hall reservation, corpse grooming, memorial ceremony, the process is almost mechanically smooth.

Xie Yinghuai was a Catholic during his lifetime, and Zong Chi specifically contacted the priest whose grandmother often went to church, but didn't want to do anything else.But he can’t do it. He still has to send formal funeral letters to countless people he doesn’t care about and doesn’t want to see. Arrange some social opportunities for them to gossip with each other - more shares are released, and now the weight is about to be shuffled again.

When his father passed away, when his grandfather passed away, and this time, Zong Chi has gone through a similar process three times.Every time a loved one leaves, a small part of him dies along with them. A person grows up and becomes complete from childhood to adulthood, and gradually becomes incomplete in loss.

It is extremely long for a person to go from death to departure.

If this person is lucky and kind-hearted, then after his death, someone will remember and recite it.Whenever a living person sees old things from the past, sees familiar scenes, tastes familiar tastes, hears songs of common memories, the wave of sadness in his heart will drag back the distant figure of the old man.Until all the people who knew him in this world died, and the connection between this person and the present world was completely severed, the person really left.

How can an ordinary person prove that he has lived?To whom?Zong Chi thought.

The selected funeral home was not too suburban, and the open space outside the auditorium was quickly filled with all kinds of luxury cars. Zong Chi stood at the front of the auditorium, nodding to everyone who came forward to express their condolences.Many people said innocuous words to him, similar to "I'm sorry" or "sorry for the change", or a short "sorry".He felt as if his soul had floated away from the celestial spirit cover, suspended above the auditorium, looking down at this solemn little team, slowly moving forward bit by bit, like a group of dying ants under the scorching sun, struggling to lick the turtles. Crack the dry sugar water on the ground.

He looked down at his relatives sleeping peacefully in the luxurious wooden coffin, and suddenly realized that his connection with the world had been cut off again, and he understood grandma's instructions and worries in a trance.

"Grandma is afraid that you will be lonely in the future."

"She is a good person with a stubborn temper. She was like this when she was young. I'm afraid she will be even worse when she is old, but I will miss her very much."

Hearing this, Zong Chi's soul sank a little. This was the first sentence he heard other than "sorry", and it was also the first time he raised his head to face the guests - standing in front of him was an old man whom he had no memory of. The woman may be an old acquaintance of grandma.

Zong Chi nodded at her and said, "Me too."

After queuing up to offer their condolences, everyone took their seats one after another. On the big screen was a photo and video that they had put together improvised. Several people took turns to deliver their condolence speeches, and Zong Chi stood beside him all the time.He was wearing a black suit, a snow-white shirt with turned-up collar, no patterns on the cuffs and tie, and a handsome and solemn face.He looked down at the few short paragraphs on the manuscript in his hand, and then looked up at the people present - most of the people in his eyes were just blurred faces, and some of them were mixed with some dresses that were a bit too gorgeous for a funeral .

He noticed that some people were crying during the dinner, and there was one he didn't even know before, and he had never seen her come to the hospital.He looked at the mother who was sitting in the first row again—her hair was tied behind her head, and half of the black gauze was hanging in front of the hat. The familiar facial features revealed a strange temperament, and the black gauze decoration was more effective than concealment.

Zong Chi was the last to speak. He wrote his speech last night until dawn.At the beginning, the manuscript was written for the guests, then it was written for grandma, and finally it was written for himself, so it was all unusable, so he deleted it, and only prepared a few short paragraphs before going on stage talk.He heard his own voice echoing in the auditorium, calm, steady, even with a hint of coldness.

This concludes the public memorial service.The assistant and the funeral home receptionist led the outsiders to the banquet hall to have some snacks and chat. Zong Chi and other relatives waited for the cremation to finish, and then went to the cemetery behind the auditorium to be buried together.

His mother, aunt, uncle, uncle, and many other relatives stood in the waiting room. Zong Chi kept a little distance from everyone, and stood straight without speaking or sitting.An hour later, the staff member walked out, holding an ebony box between white gloves, and handed it to him.

Zong Chi looked down at the box in his hand, feeling absurd in his heart.Qiuhu's counterattack was extremely ferocious, the sun was too high outside, and there were too many people around, causing all the sadness in his heart to evaporate.Or maybe it was because he cried too much that night for too long, and now he was like a withered willow in Lop Nur, poor and stubborn.

Zong Chi was holding the urn, followed by a group of taciturn and harboring relatives, and a priest walked beside him.When he arrived at the selected tomb site, a clearing had been dug on the green grass. He handed over the urn to the staff, and someone behind him thought the sun was too big and opened an umbrella.Zong Chi stepped aside, squinted his eyes against the scorching sun, and accidentally saw a person in the distance.

Jian Changche stood under a huge mulberry tree, looking in this direction from a distance - the distance was too far, but Zong Chi was sure that the person was him, hanging around, leaning against the big tree, carelessly picking up the emerald green mulberry leaves to play with Son.

The cemetery has a large area, but this is the area for private activities, so Jane can't get through it.Zong Chi looked at him in a daze, and suddenly heard someone behind him say: "What a mess, why did you let them all in?"

He looked back subconsciously, and found that what my aunt was talking about was a few men and women who wanted to walk over from the auditorium. They looked a bit like reporters or something, and he was inexplicably relieved.The uncle turned around and left, calling the staff to blast him away.

Come to an end, Zong Chi said silently.

Everyone stood around the grave, Zong Chi and the priest stood at the front, the cicadas and the birds chirped each other, the priest read the eulogy, and life returned to dust.Zong Chi watched in rapt attention as the soil buried the wooden box little by little.His mother called him, but Zong Chi didn't answer, and the other party didn't say much, and left straight to the social hall.There were other relatives whispering around, hesitating to speak, but Zong Chi didn't even give them a look. Everyone generally felt that it was not appropriate to say anything at this occasion and time, so they had to leave angrily.The last one to leave was the priest. He folded his hands and placed the Bible in front of him. Zong Chi looked up at him and said, "Thank you for your hard work."

The priest nodded at him: "No matter what stage of life you are in, you are loved by God. I will also pray for all brothers and sisters."

Zong Chi nodded and turned his head without feeling anything.

"Grandma, this is just the first of many days to come."