那些日子实在说不上悲痛。习俗也不允许悲痛。她虚寿八十三,是喜丧。有亲戚来吊唁,哭是要哭的,吃也还要吃,睡也还要睡,说笑也还是要说笑。大嫂每逢去睡的时候还要朝着棺材打趣,“奶奶,我睡了。”又朝我们笑,“奶奶一定心疼我们,会让我们睡的。”

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棺材是两个,一大一小。大的是她,小的是祖父。祖父的棺材里只放了他的一套衣服。他要和奶奶合葬,用他的衣冠。灵桌上的照片也是两个人的,放在一起却有些怪异:祖父还停留在二十八岁,奶奶已经是八十三岁了。

I would rather say when that day eventually arrived we were not so sorrowful as imagined, also, the traditional custom didn’t allow too much sadness. She passed away at the age of 83, that was an enviable life span. As for her death, it seemed like an occasion on which the funeral turned to be a celebration. A number of relatives came, they cried on the funeral but then we ate, slept and chatted, as normal. Every time when my sister was about to go to sleep she said to the coffin, “Good night, grandma.”

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And then she turned back to us, “Grandma loves us she will surly let us have some sleep.”

We laughed and agreed, as if our grandma were still around us.

There were two coffins, grandma slept in the bigger one while the smaller one was for my grandpa, not his body, but some of his old clothes. In his will several decades ago he told his family if he became a missing corpse in the war, he would be buried with his wife after she passed away, using his clothes to represent his body.

The photos of the couple put on the table also looked strange. My grandma was 83 while my grandpa was always at the age of 28, for all the past half a century.

我看着一小一大两个棺材。它们不像是夫妻,而像是母子。我看着灵桌上一青一老两张照片。也不像是夫妻,而是母子。为什么啊？为什么每当面对祖母的时候,我就会有这种身份错乱的感觉?会觉得父亲是她的孩子,母亲是她的孩子,就连祖父都变成了她的孩子?不,不止这些,我甚至觉得村庄里的每一个人,走在城市街道上的每一个人都像是她的孩子。仿佛每一个人都可以做她的孩子,她的怀抱适合每个人。

我甚至觉得,我们每一个人的样子里,都有她,她的样子里,也有我们每一个人。

与此同时,她其实,也是我们每一个人的孩子。

I stared at the two coffins, they didn’t look like those belonging to a couple, but more likely to be a mother and her son. Then I saw the photos on the table, they also seemed to be mother and son. Why? Why I had the feeling of strange identity disorder when I stood in front of my grandma? I always felt my father and mother, now together with my grandpa, were all her children, even anyone in the village and anyone walking past the streets were her children. It seemed that her embrace could warm everyone in the world.

I even had the feeling that everyone of us can identify the parts of faces and bodies which are inherited from her, our appearances have something similar to hers more or less. She was everyone’s mother.

At the same time, when she died but we continue to grow old, she became a child of us to some extent.

我的祖母已经远去。可我越来越清楚地知道:我和她的真正间距从来就不是太宽。无论年龄,还是生死。如一条河,我在此,她在彼。我们构成了河的两岸。当她堤石坍塌顺流而下的时候,我也已经泅到对岸,自觉地站在了她的旧址上。

我必须在她的根里成长,她必须在我的身体里复现,如同我和我的孩子, 我的孩子和我孩子的孩子,所有人的孩子和所有人孩子的孩子。

活着这件事变成了最慢。生命将因此而更加简约,博大,丰美,深邃和慈悲。

My grandma had left us. However, I know very clearly that the distance between she and I is always short. We are closed as we were, no matter what happens. The life and death are like two sides of a river, I am here and she is beyond the river. When her soul float downstream and disappear in my sight I know I will swim across the water and stand on where she once stayed.

I must grow inside her root system, she must reappear inside my body, like my daughter, like my granddaughter, like the child of everyone.

Living on earth is a slow process. Life is simple, deep, beautiful and full of kindness.