暖冬cool夏
这里一年四季温暖如春，没有酷暑没有严寒......
One day, my daughter, at the age of 6 or 7, pulled the Children’s Bible off her shelf, turned to the page where there was a picture of shining gold-adorned palace, and asked me in tears if it’s true that this would be place where people reside in their death. I remember that I replied something like wasn’t it wonderful to live our afterlife in such a beautiful palace? This did not quell her at all. She burst into crying harder no matter what I said. I did not know what she was taught at the church, and what made her so scared? She did not know how to express herself, but tears were streaming down constantly whenever this topic came up. This continued for a while until I stopped sending her to the church completely.
We never talked about it ever since, but it remained a question in my mind what roiled her little mind when death was so far away? What made her believe that however magnificent the heaven looks like, it is a dreadful place?
Almost everyone in this world is afraid of death, young or old, to a certain level. However advanced today’s technology is, death still remains a mystery. No living people will tell us what death feels like, or if there is really an afterlife, revival, undying soul or heavens. Death is imperceptible, unknown and out of our hand. From the moment we were born, we are traversing on the passage from infancy to adulthood, and from maturity to ultimate death. However strong the yearning for an eternal life, life is finite, and death is inevitable. We are like the speck of dust that will one day return to the world in ashes, holding on to nothing and taking nothing with us the moment we are buried.
Poignant the fact is, it reminds us to” live more in each moment”, to consummate our life and fulfill our potential, so that little regrets are left behind when our time is running out. This is the highlight of the book Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death, written by Dr, Yalom, a psychiatrist and professor at Stanford University, a book I borrowed from the library and finished it less than two weeks.
In the book, I surprisingly found a poem I learnt and recited at the middle school in China:
Good better best
Never let it rest
Until good is better
And better is best
From youth, we were educated to live positively and meaningfully, pursuing the dreams in our life. However, the older we get, the more we know, the more diminished we are at attaining the goal. Sometimes we are easily baffled with the meaning of living. Then when we are aging and deteriorating, we are inclined to be reminiscent of the old golden days, wishing to re-live life from the start. But our hourglass can never be reversed; neither can the clock be rewound. With more than half of our life gone by, we are no longer privileged to lament over the unfulfilled dreams, but to live every moment to its maximum.
夏安！
— 我想这两者之间最重要的区别是一个后面跟着生 （这就是希望）， 一个后面是虚无。
我的病康复后，我看淡了很多身外之物，在有些事情上，我变得比以前胆大了，也变得更乐观了，常常想得最多的是如何在有生之年抓紧做自己喜欢的事，不至于到死的时候太遗憾。
谢谢暖冬分享好书。这是一个很大的话题。当今世界有多少人力物力是花在战神死亡的恐惧上？
也和水沫一样，我可能对病痛更加恐惧。我觉得死亡其实轻松的，死了就是睡着了，所有的纠结都烟消云散了，子女，财产，名誉地位都不care了，没有任何痛苦。但是活着如果经受病痛的折磨更可怕。
> With more than half of our life gone by, we are no longer privileged to lament over the unfulfilled dreams,
I wish I learnt that truth before reaching mid-life.
> but to live every moment to its maximum.
Be careful here. Chasing fulfillment itself might be the root cause why we are unhappy.
暖冬写得好！
说到死亡，我总会想到人是否有灵魂这个问题。曾经读过一个故事：“有一个老太太在做手术时大出血，医生们竭力把她抢救了回来。在抢救时，有位医生的钢笔掉到窗台底下了。后来医生与老太太聊天，老太太说当时她能看到医生们抢救她时的焦急，她想开口安慰他们没事的，但没人能听见。医生不信，说当时她处于全身麻醉的状态，老太太说她看到医生的笔掉在窗台下，医生惊得目瞪口呆，因为老太太已经失明二十多年了。所以看到这一切的肯定不是她的身体，而是她的灵魂。”
如果这个故事是真的，灵魂就真的存在。那么人死后灵魂去哪里了呢？我愿意相信灵魂是存在的，愿意这样来假设：灵魂存在于我们现在还无法探知的维数里。时间是四维的，灵魂存在于更高的维数里，因为我们无法探知收集，人死后一段时间，灵魂没有了载体，不得不散掉了，一旦散失就再也无法聚合在一起，所以死去的人，没有一个回来的。但是人短暂死去，身体又被救活，灵魂还游离在不远处，仍然是完整的，就又回到了原来的载体。这就解释了老太太的故事。
生老病死是人的正常生命轨迹，没有什么可以悲叹的。可怕的是那些小小年纪就得绝症的孩子，这才是生命中最大的遗憾。
生死的断离舍，说起来和听起来挺潇洒的，其实有谁做得到呀？ 就是个装腔作势的大忽悠。
但是我认为只要在自己生命的最后一刻，能带有一颗无悔的良心去见上帝，那就真的"啊弥陀佛”了