After all, it's really unethical to stop updating for a month without even farting.
The song must be transferred in the middle, and the words must be divided into two ends.
Zhuoma first went to Xi'an to attend a friend's wedding. After returning, he fell ill. After staying in bed for several days, he faced the death of a relative for the first time in his life.
The word death seems to be very far away from me.
Zhuoma was born to young parents who were in their fifties, but looked to be in their early forties. In addition, the two elders had lively and out-of-the-box personalities, as if they were of the same age, so I never thought that they would grow old.
I forgot where I saw a sentence, it said: "The reason why we feel far away from death is because we are separated from our parents."
Zhu Ma once felt that this was just a pretentious sentence to compose a new poem to express sorrow, but now he feels it in his heart.
As long as the parents are here, there is still a purpose in life.
When parents die, there is only one way to go back in life.
Zhuoma witnessed with his own eyes how Zhuoma's father transformed from a middle-aged happy man into a little old man in half a month.
But there is more to say about Death...Capture the Horse.
The first time I had a concept of death was in 2004.
At that time, Zhuoma was still in elementary school. One day, Zhuoma's father and Zhuoma told him that they wanted to go back to his hometown.
At that time, Zhuoma didn't know what his father was doing when he returned to his hometown.
About a week later, Zhu's father returned home and informed the young Zhu Ma that his grandma was gone.
Gone.
What exactly is gone?
Only later did I find out that it was my great-grandmother who had left.
The old man was 92 years old when he passed away. His longevity was a blessing.
People always have a strong curiosity about unknown things, even death is no exception.
The horse pulled Dad and asked him a lot about death.
Twenty years have passed, and many words cannot be remembered clearly, but Zhuoma vaguely remembers asking his father very seriously that when people leave, should they close their eyes all at once or slowly?
Children probably don't have an accurate concept of death. At that time, Zhu Ma didn't know that death was like a light going out. He only thought that closing his eyes was the same as closing the refrigerator.
But the light in the refrigerator will still light up, and the light in my eyes is gone.
The father sighed deeply and did not reply.
This is the first encounter between catching a horse and death.
The second encounter was nearly ten years later.
After graduating from high school in 2011, my classmates and friends went their separate ways. At my first class reunion in 2012, there was no one at the party.
I won’t mention her name, but in short, she is a classmate, and she also has an identity, that is, she is the ex-girlfriend of the eldest among our high school friends.
After careful questioning, I learned that after the liberal arts and sciences classes were separated, the classmate stopped going to school and died of illness not long afterward.
brain cancer.
At the age of eighteen or nineteen, I know what death is, but I haven’t had many classmates pass away, and I don’t seem to have much understanding other than superficial sighs.
So this second encounter happened in a hurry.
The third encounter was at the end of last year.
This time it was a special family member of the Zhuoma family - Lele.
Lele is a little turtle that my mother started raising in 1998 and has been in my family for more than 20 years.
At that time, raising turtles was not very popular in China, so my mother raised them casually at the roadside flower, bird and fish market.
Who would have thought that this careless life would last more than 20 years.
Our family traveled from Northeast China to Qilu and back again, moving to many places, and Lele was always with us.
One time Lele fell ill, it seemed to be pneumonia. In order to see a doctor for him, I did some research on turtle classification and found out that Lele was a Mississippi red-eared slider, also commonly known as the Brazilian turtle.
It is not an immortal species.
If you are not a species of immortality, you are destined to be separated.
One day at the end of 2022, I was typing in my study, and suddenly my phone vibrated.
Open a WeChat message.
Sent by my mom.
"Let's take another look, Lele is gone."
It’s hard for me to describe the feeling at that time. My scalp suddenly went numb and goosebumps appeared on my back.
But people always couldn't express their feelings at that time, so I replied to my mother with two words: "I'm here."
Went up to the floor where my parents were, and my mother was squatting in the bathroom.
In front of her was Lele with his head lowered and motionless.
Lying quietly on the ground.
I walked over to comfort my mother.
I opened my mouth, but I didn't know where to start.
Mom raised her head, her eyes were red.
"I didn't pay attention when I was feeding just now. Then I went downstairs to eat. When I came back..."
"It felt so sudden that I couldn't even say goodbye properly, even if I had a good look at him and talked to him when I was feeding him..."
My nose was a little sore and I patted my mother on the back.
Then, we dug a pit for Lele in front of the yard and buried him in our garden.
My mother made him a coffin out of a box and buried this special family member.
I seemed to be in awe of death for the first time.
It was a separation that could never be seen again.
The last time I encountered death was a few days ago.
On May 15th, the grandparents who caught the horse were unfortunately infected with the epidemic.
After the old couple found out that they were sick, they talked and laughed and even strolled to the hospital for treatment without even taking a taxi.
But the attending doctors found that the situation was not as optimistic as they thought.
White lungs, severe infection, hypoxemia.
After several days of conservative treatment, his condition worsened and he was admitted to the ICU on the 22nd.
Zhuoma and Zhuofu were guarding their grandparents in the ward.
Of course, the aunts, uncles and aunts who caught the horses were also there.
The only younger generation is me, the eldest son and grandson.
After entering the ICU, the condition did not improve, and the condition of the two elders became worse day by day.
This situation continued until the 25th.
In the evening, grandpa inhaled oxygen with a concentration of 35%, and his blood oxygen level was already above 90.
Grandma’s blood oxygen level is also above 90.
Zhu Ma finally breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that the two elders were out of danger, so he said goodbye to them and returned home.
Accidents will happen.
People have misfortunes and good fortunes.
Just when Zhu Ma thought everything was fine, less than a week later, his father called again and told him that his grandma was critically ill.
When I caught the horse, I never thought that my loved ones would leave.
After all, my grandparents' indicators were pretty good when I left.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! When I returned to my hometown, my grandma had been plugged into a ventilator and had completely lost her ability to breathe on her own. The little old lady was lying on the bed with her eyes closed tightly.
Blood oxygen hovers around 80.
I was shocked and quickly asked about the situation.
It turns out that the reason why grandma had 90 blood oxygen last time was because she was breathing 80% oxygen concentration...
Shocked, heartbroken, confused.
Even as a writer, it is difficult for me to describe my mood at that time.
At that time, I had the worst premonition.
Grandma may have to leave.
Wear a ventilator and receive anesthesia.
One night's blood oxygen went from 80 to 60 and back to 80 again.
The beeping alarm of the vital sign meter makes people panic.
I stayed up all night, and the next day with red eyes, I asked my grandma's attending physician, my uncle, how my grandma was doing.
My uncle's answer to me was, it's dangerous.
Other than that, I won’t say much more.
There was a thump in my heart.
As time went by, the old lady never got better. On the contrary, the lung erosion became more and more serious.
I asked my uncle quietly.
The uncle sighed and said frankly that the possibility of a miracle was getting smaller and smaller now.
In the days following the rescue, at the most critical moment, the old lady was even given longevity pants.
The old lady is tenacious.
It seems to be a nostalgia for relatives and a reluctance to leave the world.
He struggled back from the brink of death time and time again.
But the reason why a miracle is a miracle is because it is a miracle. If it could happen all the time, it would no longer be a miracle.
On the twelfth day after entering the ICU, my grandma fell into a dying state.
The three children held the old lady's hand and talked.
I don't know if the old lady can hear it, but I want to say it.
I also leaned close to the old lady's ear, held her hand, and talked about this and that.
Perhaps the old lady is not conscious or even completely unconscious, but she must know that we are all here.
The old lady cried.
The old lady in deep coma shed tears.
I grew up next to my grandma. When I saw her tears, my nose became sour and the tears fell down without knowing why.
In the evening, my aunt and uncle have to go home from work tomorrow, so my fun-loving dad and I are the only ones left in the ICU.
The eighty-year-old grandfather held my hand and cried like a child.
"I will never be able to chat with the little old lady again."
That was the first time I saw my grandfather cry.
Before he retired, my grandfather was a high-ranking official with a dignified attitude. After he retired, he often taught me to be an upright person.
In my eyes, grandpa is probably the image of an old patriarch in novels.
I tried not to cry out and patted my grandfather's hand.
Tired of crying, Grandpa sucked in oxygen and fell asleep.
My father, who has always been a happy and cheerful man, is dark-skinned, but you can see the corners of his eyes are red.
There are a little more white hair visible to the naked eye than yesterday.
one day.
Another day.
I know there are no miracles.
Because my grandma has diabetes, many of the medicines she takes cannot be absorbed, and the edema is visible to the naked eye.
On the fifteenth day after entering the ICU, my grandma, who was in a deep coma, began to nod her breathing.
I know that there is not much time left for grandma.
Blood oxygen has been hovering around 60...
Whether I can survive today is still unknown.
After staying up all night, I went to have breakfast. As soon as I lay down, my dad called me.
"The time has come when I need you."
I jumped up as soon as I heard this, wondering if the vital sign monitor was alarming again.
When we arrived, there were already two or three caregivers and nurses in the ICU.
And the doctor.
And my happy-go-lucky dad who has a lot of gray hair.
The blood oxygen level on the vital signs meter is still 60, and other indicators are a bar.
I was stunned and didn't react.
"The blood oxygen is not bad."
Dad said nothing and sighed.
My mind was buzzing.
Grandma is gone.
Although I had imagined the worst case scenario, when I saw that my heartbeat was in a straight line, I still couldn't believe it was true.
I just had a bite to eat.
When we come back, we will be separated forever.
The little old lady who worked hard and frugally all her life passed away on June 6, 2023.
There is only a wall between grandma and grandpa's wards.
The top priority is not to let grandpa, who is still seriously ill, know.
Then I was confused, bought tribute fruits, and went to the funeral parlor...
Grandpa soon learned about grandma's departure.
The two elders have supported each other for more than fifty years, and they seem to have some feelings for each other.
After finishing everything and parking my grandma's body at the funeral home, I returned to the ward.
Grandpa kept sighing.
"This old lady is so cruel. She dumped her after all."
The next day, grandma said her final farewell to her relatives and friends at the funeral home.
There are many people, including relatives, caregivers, people who have been blessed by grandma, and leaders.
The whole day passed like this amidst the noise.
On June 8, my grandma’s body was put into a birthday box from the funeral parlor, and that was the last time I saw her.
The embalmer's skills were very good. Grandma had her eyes closed and the corners of her mouth seemed to be slightly raised, as if she was asleep.
Three hours later, at the crematorium.
Grandma turned into a pile of white bone fragments.
Unlike in the movie, the burned ashes are not gray slag, but pale bones.
Even the patella and femur can be distinguished.
The skull was held in the box in my hands until it entered the urn.
When looking at the skull, Zhuoma's heart changed from sadness to numbness. I thought more than once, is this my grandma?
Two hours later, grandma entered the ashes storage room and waited for grandpa to be discharged from the hospital and sent to the ancestral grave.
It was only at this time that Zhu Ma had a reverence for death.
Not to revere death itself, but to revere its ritual.
Death is a ritual.
A ritual that represents the death of the body and the gradual loss of anchorage to the world.
When my father's generation is gone and my brothers' generation is gone, it will be difficult for anyone in the next generation to remember her.
Then he lost the anchor of the world and truly died.
The horse seems to have caught something, but it also seems to have caught nothing.
Whether it is to share my life experience with the officials or to apologize, I wrote this article.
