On the first day of the Lunar New Year, every family is happily celebrating the Spring Festival and reuniting together. However, in an ordinary village, a dispute over a grave makes people feel the interweaving of life and death and traditional ideas. The story takes place in a small village full of rural atmosphere, and the time goes back to the Spring Festival six years ago, when everything seemed to have just happened.
In this village, the marriage between my grandmother and my grandfather was not out of love, but an arranged marriage. My grandmother was a normal, healthy, hardworking woman, while my grandfather was a disabled person who could not walk normally. Although his grandfather was physically disabled, he was the only son in the family.
After my grandmother got married, she gave birth to my mother and sister-in-law. However, the cruelty of fate caused my grandfather to die of illness shortly after my grandmother gave birth to two uncles, leaving behind her elderly parents and four children. My grandmother's father-in-law, who was my mother's grandfather, couldn't bear such a blow and died in the same year. Since then, there have only been four women left in the family, my mother and aunt, my grandmother, and my mother's grandmother.
My mother's grandmother died after my mother got married, and my grandmother remarried soon after. My mother described the location of the grave, but time passed, and the location of the grave was difficult to recall. Since my mother got married, she would go to her grandmother's grave every Spring Festival to burn incense, and my aunt would accompany her. And for as long as I can remember, my brother and I have joined the ranks.
However, six years ago, during the Chinese New Year, an accident changed everything. When we came to the grave of my mother and grandmother, we were surprised to find that the grave had become much smaller, and the tail was all dug and planted. My mother asked the owner of the land why the graves were getting smaller and smaller, but the landowner's answer was outrageous.
The landowner said that this grave had been buried in my field for nearly 70 years, and people had long since turned to dust. He thinks that his mother is this age, how many years can he come? Moreover, after the death of the mother, will her son still come to burn incense and set off firecrackers for this grave? Digging the grave can also grow a few nests of vegetables, saving the annual incense money. He took it for granted that his mother and aunt were both foreign surnames, and there were no sons and grandchildren, and there were such rules in his hometown.
Although these words are a bit mean, they also make people think. In the countryside, if a grave is not sacrificed for two or three years, it will really be dug into the ground. If the grave had no sons and grandchildren, it would have been dug up for a maximum of ten years. In our hometown, if a grave is not sacrificed for two or three years, it will really be dug into the ground, and if the tomb has no sons and grandchildren, it will be dug up to the ground for ten years at most.
This reminds me of another incident, there is a family in my hometown who has buried two graves for 40 years, and the shape of the graves is still the same as it was back then. There are sons, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren of the owner of the tomb, and there are people who worship at the grave every year. In contrast, the grave of my grandmother seems lonely.
At first, I was angry at the attitude of the landlord and felt that he had gone too far. However, when you think about it, there seems to be some truth to it. The grave of my mother and grandmother has been 70 years old, is it reasonable to occupy this land? When people die, don't they all return to dust and dust to dust?
This is just my personal opinion, and I would never dare to mention it in front of the elderly people in the village, because it involves the patriarchal thinking of the rural hometown, which is a deep cultural cognition. This phenomenon is not only in my hometown, but may be similar elsewhere.
Behind this dispute over the grave is not only a dispute between the landowner and his family, but also a clash of cultural concepts. This small village carries a rich history and tradition, and this dispute has made people think about the collision of tradition and modernity, and the change of the concept of life and death. Perhaps, such stories are not only happening in our villages, but may also be found in other places.
Through this story, we can see the contradiction between the traditional concept and modern thinking of the rural hometown. This is not only a battle for the grave, but also a microcosm of the changing times. Perhaps, it is only on the basis of understanding and respecting tradition that the problems of modern society can be better addressed. May the dispute over this hamlet give rise to broader reflection on the balance between cultural heritage and social progress.