最近，我突然开始意识到葬礼的意义了。
在读托宾的《魔术师》时， 一个不算突出的句子却让我想了很多。“当卡拉自杀时， 他有母亲可安慰，当卢拉过世时，全家人都在他身边，如今虽然卡提娅和埃丽卡都在，他却孤独了。”
也许是因为死亡离得比较近， 也可能因为这的确是目前我经历的更加亲近的人的离开， 舅舅的自杀于我来说很难过去。 但我读了这句话突然意识到它的艰难可能不仅仅是这两个原因。 我在这次处理死亡时是孤立无援的。我是以通知的方式被转告这个事情的，妈妈从没亲口说过这件事， 我的爸爸代劳的，所以知道事情的过程在我看来真的可以被称作通知。 我不知道妈妈知道这件事的状态， 她也不了解我的，但我们都能想象到对方的艰难，所以这个伤痛发生的一个月我们都缄口不谈，不想再刺痛对方， 它就安静的留在不打电话的另外23小时里，生怕提起。 但我现在意识到这也许就我的痛苦被包紧，捂着，发炎的原因。我需要那个我们两个的悲伤都没来得及掩饰的瞬间来确定我在流眼泪的时候有共情的伙伴， 这点朋友做不到， 其他亲戚做不到， 老爸也做不到， 只有我和妈妈做的到。 这种一致像李翊云写在The book of goose里写的那样，“ i do not imagine that the half of an orange facing south would have to tell the other half how warm the sunlight is” 尽管是the opposite of sunlight, 但我相信这种一致性。但可惜， 我们是被切开的橙子，一个在中国，一个在美国。 直到几乎是3个月后，我们可以在开口时不流眼泪的时候，我才描述我经历过的悲伤
但因为葬礼的缺席， 我本来就不算外露的情绪被掩藏的更好。 爸妈也不善于分享， 所以我们各自小心翼翼地在每天一个小时的聊天里筛选合适的分享话题， 不能太悲伤，让人再想到这个死亡， 不能太轻松，让大家不得不笑得太难看太僵硬。 所以我捂着这个痛苦， 让它发痒， 自己一遍遍地想， 一下下地戳着伤口知道麻木， 捂着的过程让它的愈合无比漫长。
当从每天晚上回忆有关舅舅的记忆到开始写对于以前所有经历过的死亡的想法时，我意识到它已经从失去亲人的悲伤发炎成独自面对死亡的生长痛了。我在这里晚上哭的时候意识到没有人能和我一起承担。 这种得一个人处理悲伤的恐惧和孤独在某个瞬间甚至压过了悲伤本身。 而在当初外公去世的时候， 悲伤和思念在葬礼上就被所有人的眼泪消毒洗净过了， 没有机会发炎腐烂。
Recently, I’ve started to understand the meaning of a funeral.
While reading Toíbín’s The Magician, a sentence that wasn’t even central to the story made me pause. “When Clara killed herself, he had his mother to comfort him. When Lula died, the whole family surrounded him. But now, although Katia and Erika were there, he was alone.”
Maybe it’s because death has felt closer lately, or maybe because this is the closest loss I’ve experienced so far. My uncle’s suicide has been difficult for me to process. But when I read that line, I suddenly realized the difficulty wasn’t only about proximity or intimacy. This time, I had to face death completely on my own. I learned about his death in the form of a notice—my mother never told me directly; my father relayed the news. The way I found out felt like being informed of an event, not being included in it. I had no sense of how my mother was dealing with it, and she didn’t know my state either. We could imagine each other’s pain, but for a whole month we stayed silent, not wanting to hurt the other. The grief sat quietly in the 23 hours we didn’t call, waiting to be avoided.
Only now do I realize that this avoidance might be exactly why my pain swelled and festered. I needed a moment where neither of us had time to hide our sadness, a moment that confirmed I wasn’t crying alone. Friends couldn’t give me that, nor could other relatives, nor even my dad. Only my mom could. It’s that kind of alignment Li Yiyun describes in The Book of Goose: “I do not imagine that the half of an orange facing south would have to tell the other half how warm the sunlight is.” Even though what we’re facing is the opposite of sunlight, I believe in that kind of shared understanding. But unfortunately, we were two halves of an orange that had been cut apart—one in China, one in the U.S. It wasn’t until almost three months later, when we could both speak about it without crying immediately, that I could finally describe the sadness I had gone through.
Without a funeral, my already inward emotions were buried even deeper. My parents aren’t good at sharing either, so in our one hour of daily conversation, all three of us carefully selected topics that were neither too sad—so we wouldn’t return to the subject of death—nor too light, so we wouldn’t be forced into a strained or inappropriate laugh. And so I held the pain tight. I let it itch. I thought about it again and again, pressing the wound until it numbed. The act of holding it in made the healing unbearably slow.
At some point—when I went from recalling memories of my uncle every night to writing down my thoughts about every death I had witnessed before—I realized the grief had already inflamed into something else: the growing pain of facing death alone. In the nights when I cried here, I suddenly understood that no one could carry this with me. That fear and loneliness of having to handle grief by myself, for a moment, overshadowed the sadness itself.
When my grandfather passed away years ago, the sadness and longing were washed clean at the funeral by everyone’s tears. They never had the chance to fester or rot.