蘇顏酒坊
我欣喜地看著萬家燈火，知道自己回到了人間。
今天附近的購物中心舉行兒童活動，女兒和她的一個小朋友在那裏玩了幾乎一整天，晚上明顯累了。可是她的大腦還處在興奮狀態，衝完澡躺在床上她還不停地說話。我恨不得她趕快睡著，自己也好早點休息。哪裏想到她把話題引到了我的身上。
‘Mom, how old are you?’
‘39’.我老老實實地說。
‘Then next time on your birthday you will be 40?’
‘Yes. Hey, can we stop talking about my age?’
‘Are you scared?’
‘A little bit.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want to become old.’
女兒聽著突然嘴巴一扁，哭了起來。我忙問怎麽了？她說：I don’t want to die!
這已經不是第一次她說這樣的話了。有一次她從學校的圖書館借回來一本書，大概是說一個小女孩的親人去世了，那個小女孩很傷心的故事。從那以後，她就常問我生死方麵的問題。我總是笑著說：“我們還有很多年要過、很多學要上、很多事要做，現在想那麽久以後的事幹什麽？去玩兒吧。”不過，看來她的心結並沒有解開，我決定再試一次。
於是我問: ‘have you ever died before?’
女兒說: ‘No.’
‘Really? That would be interesting.’
‘Why?’
‘You’ve never died before, then how come you are scared of something you don’t even know?’
‘To die is like you have to hold your breath forever.’
我使勁地忍住笑說: ‘Then stop holding your breath.’
‘But, to die is like you go to another world and never come back.’
‘That’s true. You know what, back at the little town I grew up, we have two kinds of celebrations: wedding celebrating and funeral celebration.’
‘Funeral celebration?’
‘Yes. But not every one who dies can have a funeral celebration. That person must be old enough, have children and grand-children. That person has finished job in this world, then they go to another world to start a different kind of life. That is just like different stages in our life: you go to kindergarten, primary school, high school, university, then find a job and move out etc etc. No one can stay in the same stage forever. In a few years, you will go to high school, and you can’t stay in primary school forever.’
女兒的學校一邊是小學部，另一邊是中學部，她早就覬覦中學部那邊帶鎖的衣櫃，對中學充滿憧憬。她果然興奮起來，居然開始嘲笑那些固步自封的人: ‘Imaging some one say “I don’t want to go to high school！’
我也誇張地做著表情說, ‘Imaging a kindergarten kid cry “boo hoo hoo, I don’t want to go to school, I want to stay in the kinder forever” !’ 女兒狂笑。
我繼續說: ‘Imaging a university student say “boo hoo hoo, I don’t want to find a job, I want to stay in the Uni forever!”’ 女兒又一陣狂笑。
然後我收起臉說: ‘But we can’t skip any stage either. You have to go to primary school, then high school, then university. Can you imaging a kindergarten kid go to university and say “I want to be a university student”?’
女兒很認真地說: ‘he has to wait till he finishes high school!’
‘That’s right, we do different things at different stage. When we finish our jobs in this life we go to another life, so there is nothing to worry about going to another world. But now we are not ready to die yet, we still have a lot of things to do in this life. Before we finish our school, find a job, getting married, have children and grand-children, we can’t even go to another world. So can we stop worry about it?’
女兒不說話了，我趕緊說：“啊呀寶貝呀，你今天可是累壞了吧，累的時候就胡思亂想的。快睡吧。”
我輕輕地吻了她的臉頰，給她唱了晚安歌。從房間退出來的時候，我聽到了她輕輕的笑聲。我打消她的疑慮的嗎？我也不確定。不過千萬不要低估小孩子的智力。不知道過幾天她又要給我出什麽題目。
