苏颜酒坊
我欣喜地看着万家灯火，知道自己回到了人间。
今天附近的购物中心举行儿童活动，女儿和她的一个小朋友在那里玩了几乎一整天，晚上明显累了。可是她的大脑还处在兴奋状态，冲完澡躺在床上她还不停地说话。我恨不得她赶快睡着，自己也好早点休息。哪里想到她把话题引到了我的身上。
‘Mom, how old are you?’
‘39’.我老老实实地说。
‘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.’
女儿听着突然嘴巴一扁，哭了起来。我忙问怎么了？她说：I don’t want to die!
这已经不是第一次她说这样的话了。有一次她从学校的图书馆借回来一本书，大概是说一个小女孩的亲人去世了，那个小女孩很伤心的故事。从那以后，她就常问我生死方面的问题。我总是笑着说：“我们还有很多年要过、很多学要上、很多事要做，现在想那么久以后的事干什么？去玩儿吧。”不过，看来她的心结并没有解开，我决定再试一次。
于是我问: ‘have you ever died before?’
女儿说: ‘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.’
我使劲地忍住笑说: ‘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.’
女儿的学校一边是小学部，另一边是中学部，她早就觊觎中学部那边带锁的衣柜，对中学充满憧憬。她果然兴奋起来，居然开始嘲笑那些固步自封的人: ‘Imaging some one say “I don’t want to go to high school！’
我也夸张地做着表情说, ‘Imaging a kindergarten kid cry “boo hoo hoo, I don’t want to go to school, I want to stay in the kinder forever” !’ 女儿狂笑。
我继续说: ‘Imaging a university student say “boo hoo hoo, I don’t want to find a job, I want to stay in the Uni forever!”’ 女儿又一阵狂笑。
然后我收起脸说: ‘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”?’
女儿很认真地说: ‘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?’
女儿不说话了，我赶紧说：“啊呀宝贝呀，你今天可是累坏了吧，累的时候就胡思乱想的。快睡吧。”
我轻轻地吻了她的脸颊，给她唱了晚安歌。从房间退出来的时候，我听到了她轻轻的笑声。我打消她的疑虑的吗？我也不确定。不过千万不要低估小孩子的智力。不知道过几天她又要给我出什么题目。
