Grandma died, and she was beaten at the banquet
After my eighty-six-year-old grandfather died in the county seat, I went straight to the cemetery in my hometown with my parents, aunt, wife and son, and wreaths for memorial services, carrying his urn in a four-wheeled truck.
After a few hours of hard work, we succeeded in burying my grandfather.
Our decision may lead some people to think that we are unfilial, including my father, who reluctantly agreed to deal with my grandfather's funeral in this way. Although I don't think that it is unfilial piety to raise and bury lightly, I think we should handle grandpa's funeral with dignity and not treat it lightly.
However, this is the lesson learned when my grandmother died four years ago, and we were forced to do it. We are a village with a single surname, all the people have the surname Xiao, our family is sparsely populated, there are no immediate relatives, and the nearest clansmen are all outside Wufu.
My father had been worried about my grandparents' funerals for many years, because he knew that a small family like ours was often manipulated by others when it came to such a big event, and they couldn't make their own decisions.
Our custom here is that when an elderly person dies in the family, everything is handled by the chief manager, no matter how much it costs, family members cannot intervene, and if you cross the line slightly, you may face the risk of being left out in the cold.
I have heard of such things, many wealthy families go bankrupt because of funerals, and some frugal families have disputes with the chief steward because they are distressed about the cost of funerals, and they are left out in the cold and forced to send the coffins of the old people to the cemetery themselves.
I didn't care about my father's worries, and I thought it would be worth it for the villagers to help, even if we spent 30,000 yuan or more. Moreover, I now have a small grease processing plant, and the financial strength is strong enough to support such expenses.
On December 25, 2019, my 81-year-old grandmother passed away. My father found the fifth uncle, who was in his 50s, the chief manager in charge of red and white affairs in the village, to discuss the funeral.
The fifth uncle is an experienced big man, and he told us with a high pride that he would arrange everything in a decent way and reassure us. We thanked him for his kindness and gave him a red envelope.
The red tape of the funeral was carried out according to the usual practice, and the fifth uncle mainly asked us how many relatives in my family needed to arrange how many tables of banquets in the village restaurant, as well as the specifications and costs of the banquets.
He also told us very considerately: "We people surnamed Xiao pay attention to etiquette and actively participate in red and white affairs. Now that it is the end of the year, the people who work outside have returned to the village, and they will definitely gather here, and now it is different from before, they all talk about money, and the people who come need at least a hundred yuan a day, except for two meals a day at noon and in the evening.
That's it now. My father nodded reluctantly. The fifth uncle took advantage of the situation and proposed: "People die after eighty, this is considered a happy funeral, and the opera troupe from the neighboring county should be invited to make a scene." ”
Before my father could reply, I politely declined. It's not that I'm worried about money, mainly because I've been very close to my grandmother since I was a child, and I don't want to do anything festive in this sad moment.
My refusal made the fifth uncle's face ugly, and also laid a hidden danger for what happened later.
At my grandmother's funeral, we paid a considerable price. A total of more than 60,000 yuan in wages and remuneration banquets, just the people of the same clan who helped us spent more than 20,000 yuan a day.
This made me feel very uncomfortable and felt that the money was spent too unjustly. What makes me even more unhappy is that there is a banquet in the evening, where we have to kowtow and bow down at each table to thank the villagers for their help.
Although this is our custom, our family is physically and mentally exhausted for the past three days, and we hope that they will leave after eating and drinking, and we will have a good rest. The three old and four young people in the house were already guessing the boxing orders at midnight, and our family could only suffer from the cold in the doorway in the courtyard, and the eighty-year-old grandfather was huddled there shivering.
The fifth uncle was drunken and scolded, I couldn't bear it anymore, walked up to him and said, "Fifth uncle, let's go back and rest." "Who knew that the fifth uncle misunderstood me, thinking that I was unloading the mill and killing the donkey, ignoring the feelings of our family.
The fifth uncle's son also joined the fray and smashed my forehead with a tea bowl. Despite my father's dissuasion, a group of people took the opportunity to beat me and my father to the ground.
This incident made my grandfather decide to go to the city with us, and he was disappointed with the way of life in his hometown. Later, I learned from Fa Xiao that there were rebates for everything that the fifth uncle did, including funeral cars, wreaths, white cloths, and hotel reservations.
I rejected the singing troupe and made him lose a lot, so he would find fault and exert his power. In today's rural areas, money is the most important, and all actions are strongly utilitarian. When I deal with my grandfather's funeral, it may cause ridicule and abuse from the villagers, who may think that we are unfilial.
But I think that being generous and burying is not the same as being unfilial. Isn't it more meaningful for us to use money to support our grandfather than to spend a lot of money on a funeral? Is it possible to ignore the care and love of the elderly for the sake of the funeral scenery?
Many savvy rural people, who understand this, are still obsessed with holding events that are superficially glamorous but in fact cause trouble, and it is puzzling what they are doing to do so.