你的人生可能有过很多难忘的经历，比如，你获得过万众瞩目的奖赏，你做出过别人做不出的成就，你游历过世上最优秀的名胜，你得到过意中人的倾心，等等，但是没有一种经历能和这种经历相比。所有那些经历， 不过是虚荣和欲望的满足和未满足，而这种经历给你的是人生一种独特的，纯净的，无代价的，不可复制的感觉，它们定格在那里，其他的感觉无法与之相比。这就是对亲人的思念。

有研究表明，大多数人临近生命的终点时，所有的欲念和价值都化成了这样两件事：你有没有爱过或被爱过。这无疑也透露出到底什么才是人生的真正价值。

我们在这个世界上的一切活动，无非就是维持这个生物躯壳，和满足这个躯壳的欲望。这些欲望最大的支撑点是获取他人的爱，和寻找对象来付出自己的爱，尽管爱的形式和浓度会大有不同，从普通的好感到撕肝裂肺。 简言之，人到世间走一遭，就是为了寻求爱，和付出爱。即使是一个条件无比优越的独生主义者，他自己也不可能成为一个封闭的永久欢乐和满足的发动机，他的欢乐和满足同样需要来自外部世界的激励和认同，也就是社会的爱。

来自社会的爱像大海里的漂移植物，是无根的，势利的，随波起落的。想在这个高度物化的的社会上得到其他人无条件的，真诚的爱，一般来说是一种奢望。唯有在来自血缘的爱那里才具有足够的真实性。

你可能一生没有被世人真正爱过，但你至少被你的父母，父母的父母爱过。你可能一生没有真正爱过别人，但你至少会认真爱你的子女，子女的子女。这些经历悄悄地储藏在那里，等待着你的心的召唤。

在三年天灾人祸那些星期天，父亲骑车带我去他们机关的农场，刨点收获后剩下的红薯。我坐在自行车的货架上，他吃力地蹬着自行车。上坡时我听见他大口大口的喘气声就跳下了货架，他停下车，又把我拽上去，“好好坐着，没事的！”

少年的时候，母亲洗头总喜欢要我给她作最后的冲淋。我抱着一个大土磁水罐，里面装满温水，她把头埋在水盆之上。我可以让水从水罐的出水嘴中不断流出，准确地淋在她的后颈窝上，她则不停地搓洗头发。一罐温水淋完，头发清洗得干干净净， 她是那样的惬意：“真舒服！我的头是油汗，没有水我就活不下去。”那时我的感觉是好满足，好温馨。

“找到谢云秀，我要把她 . . .”外婆的手剧烈地抖动着从对襟棉袄的口袋里掏钱来付我头上伤口的治疗费。一向善良温和又整洁的她此时变得满面怒火，头发凌乱，口齿不清。我虽然头上的伤口火辣辣， 注意力却被外婆那些从未见过的变化吸引了去。谢云秀是姐姐的同学，人疯疯癫癫，我不愿她来我家参加自习小组，要把大门关上，她用一块石头砸得我头皮开花。

这些事都是真的吗？如果是，除了那些看不见摸不着的思绪之外，我还能到哪里去寻找它们的踪影？

过了中年，那些无条件关爱我们的人一个一个消失，我们沉浸在一个以利益交换为主要内容的群体中，只有思念能告诉我们，那些无条件的关爱真正存在过。

人们说，“不要沉溺于往事中。”我倒要问，除了往事和这个有机的躯壳，还有什么是我们真正拥有的？如果把人一生的轨迹像做MRI（核磁共振）那样切成无数断面，你会发现构成每个断面的，不过就是躯壳和往事而已 ， 而思念则是最重要最有价值的往事。你还会发现躯壳和思念的比例随年纪而发生变化，开始的时候，只有躯壳，结束的时候，只有思念。随着生命接近它的终点，思念会成了生活的主旋律。九十多岁的父亲躺在医院的病床上有三年。 他是一个聪颖，善良，敬业，风度翩翩的知名医生，直到住进病房前还在行医。疫情的残忍，使他在最后的日子里没有儿女能守在身边。一直照顾他的护工告诉我们，那些日子，不管是醒着还是梦中，他都念叨着自己的母亲， “我想我妈妈！” “我看见了我妈妈！”那个我们谁也不知道的人，那些我们谁也不知道的事，成了父亲那个时候的全部精神拥有。

难道这不是所有人的归宿吗？在必然会来临的最后那些寂寞又清醒的日日夜夜，躯壳被疾病和年龄限制在白床单上，魂牵梦绕的儿女孙辈们在哪里？终身奋斗的财产名声又能给你什么安慰？只有思念陪着你，日复一日。

人们从自己亲人那里得到的也不一定都是温馨的感觉。美国第三任总统托马斯•杰斐逊（Thomas Jefferson）在他生命最后阶段所完成的回忆录中讲了一段话，他说，如果自己能再活一次的话，他宁愿缩短自己的寿命， 也要扣掉和母亲在一起的那段悲伤日子。和杰斐逊有类似经历的人应该不在少数，这告诉我们反常的人性有可能对他人损害到什么程度，它在不幸的人心中只会种下难于面对的仇恨种子，这种子若不能被智慧或来自其他方面的爱化解， 就会变成人所不愿面对的硬结而终身留痕。仇恨不具有思念的价值。

思念的价值，不仅仅是因为它所带来的那些特殊的感受，思念有助于人性的改善。

思念的时候，你对人的真正需要会有更深的认识，你体验到什么是爱，什么是善，体验到你期待的是一种什么样的爱，什么样的善，于是你有可能会在潜意识中用它来衡量自己的行为。

思念的时候，你会更加坦荡地面对人生，你对死亡的彼岸不再恐惧，因为那里有爱你的人们。不管你信奉什么，不管你处于什么环境，遇到什么艰难，当你说，妈妈，爸爸，我到时会来和你们在一起的时候， 你体验到的是罕见的平静和安慰。思念会使每个人心中都充满一种持续的柔软。

你可能是个无神论者，脑子里装满了科学，你相信进化，相信量子漂移，你拒绝任何伪科学，你也拒绝宗教，不管是梵蒂冈的宗教还是毛泽东的宗教，你不相信来世，不相信造物主，不信仰上帝，菩萨，马克思，黑格尔，康德. . .， 你以自己有一个独立自主的灵魂而骄傲。但你是不是也会思念故去的亲人？你是不是非常想再见到他们？你是不是相信总有一天，在那不可知的地方你会和他们在一起？当你思念他们时，你的灵魂和他们的灵魂交流时， 你会感觉自己的真诚，谦卑，感到那样无欲念的轻松，只有深深的爱，和重见他们的期盼。这种感觉，你能把它简单地归结为大脑中记忆酶的作用吗？这难道这不就是一种信仰的感觉？

信仰不是向偶而立貌似虔诚的祈祷颂经，不是那些自认为高人一等的世俗表演，而是对某些事物和概念的坚定信念和信任，它使你能在喧嚣中静下来认真地感受，在痛楚中获得抚慰，在迷茫中不再孤单，不管其直接的功利效果是多是少， 它使你在世俗的环境中有一种不仅仅是去追求利益满足的冲动。思念是一种信仰，它使我 们谦虚，使我们有畏惧感，使我们在物欲巨浪中有躲藏之地。

离去的亲人，我思念你们。因为我的思念，你们会一直存在于这个世界上，让我能享受那些不可能从其它地方再获得的东西。只有当爱你们的和你们所爱的人的躯壳中这种思念消失的时候，你们才会真正离开这个世界。

（2022年12月）


English Version ---------------------------


The value of missing

You may have had many unforgettable experiences in your life. For example, you may have received much-anticipated awards, you may have made achievements that others cannot, you may have visited the most outstanding scenic spots in the world, you may have won the love of the person you like, etc., but no experience can compare to this one. All those experiences are nothing but satisfaction or dissatisfaction of vanity and desires, and this experience gives you a unique, pure, priceless, unrepeatable feeling of life, they are frozen there, no other feelings can compare. This is the missing of loved ones.

According to some research, when most people approach the end of their lives, all desires and values boil down into two things: whether you have loved or been loved. This undoubtedly reveals the real value of life.

All our activities in this world do nothing more than maintain this biological body and satisfy the desires of this body. The biggest support point of these desires is to obtain the love of others, and to find some others to give your own love, although the form and intensity of love will be very different, from ordinary paying attention to heart-rending love. In short, people come to the world to seek love and give love. Even if a celibate with extremely superior conditions, cannot become a closed engine of permanent joy and satisfaction. His joy and satisfaction also need the encouragement and recognition from the outside world, that is, the love of society.

Love from society is like a drifting plant in the ocean, rootless, snobbish, ebb and flow. Unconditional, genuine love from other people is generally an extravagant hope in this highly objectified society. Only in the love that comes from the blood is there enough truth.

You may not have been truly loved by the world in your life, but at least you have been loved by your parents, your parents' parents. You may never really love others in your life, but at least you will seriously love your children, your children's children. These experiences are quietly stored there, waiting for your heart's call.

On Sundays during the three years of natural and man-made disasters on those, my father took me to the farm of his organization by bicycle to get some sweet potatoes left after harvest. I sat on the bike rack while he pedaled hard. When we were going uphill, I heard him panting heavily and jumped off the bike rack. He stopped and dragged me up again, "Just sit there, I’m okay!"

When I was a teenager, my mother always liked to ask me to give her a final shower when washing her hair. I held a large earthen pitcher filled with warm water, and she buried her head in the basin. I let the water stream flow from the spout of the pitcher, and poured it precisely on the nape of her neck, while she kept scrubbing her hair. After showering with a jar of warm water and washing her hair clean, she was so comfortable: "It's so good! My head is oily and sweaty, and I can't live without water." At that time, I felt so satisfied and so warm.

"When I find Xie Yunxiu, see what I will do to her..." Grandma's hands trembling violently took out money from the pocket of the old fishing Chinese padded jacket to pay for the treatment of the wound on my head. She, who was always kind, gentle and tidy, now became angry, with disheveled hair and slurred speech. Although the wound on my head was hot, I was distracted by my grandmother’s uncharacteristic behavior. Xie Yunxiu is my sister's classmate, she is crazy, I don't want her to come to my home to join the self-study group, I want to close the door, she hit my scalp with a stone and it bled a lot.

Are these things true? If so, where else can I find traces of them other than those invisible and intangible thoughts?

After middle age, those who cared for us unconditionally disappear one by one, and we are immersed in a group of people whose main content was the exchange of interests. Only when missing them do we know that those unconditional loves really existed.

People say, "Don't dwell on the past." I would like to ask, what else do we really have but the memories of past and this organic shell? If you cut the trajectory of a person's life into countless sections like an MRI, you will find that what constitutes each section is just the current body and the memories of past, and the missing of your loved ones is the most important and valuable memories of past. You will also find that the ratio of body and memories changes with age. At the beginning, there is only the body, and at the end, there are only memories. As life approaches its end, missing of loved ones will become the main theme of life. My father, who lived into his nineties, lay on a hospital bed for three years. He was a smart, kind, dedicated, personable, well-known doctor who was still practicing medicine until he was admitted to the ward. The cruelty of the pandemic deprived him of having any children by his side in his last days. The care worker who had been taking care of him told us that in those days, whether he was awake or in his dreams, he would talk about his mother, "I miss my mother!" "I saw my mother!” The person that none of us knew, those things that none of us knew, became all the spiritual possessions of my father at that time.

Isn't this a situation everyone will experience? In those lonely and sober days and nights that are bound to come, when the body is confined to the white sheets by disease and age, where are the children and grandchildren to whom you are so care about? And what consolation can a lifelong struggle for wealth and fame give you? Only memories of missing are with you, day after day.

People don't always get warm feelings from their loved ones. Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, said in his memoirs written during the last period of his life that if he could live again, he would rather shorten his life span and deduct the sad days with his mother. There are many people who have had a similar experience to Jefferson. This tells us how much abnormal human nature can be harmful to others. It only sows intractable seeds of hatred in the heart of the unfortunate, unless dispelled by wisdom or love from other sources, will turn into knots that no one want to face, and will remain for life. Hate has no value of remembrance.

The value of missing is not only because of the special feelings it brings, missing helps to improve human nature.

When you miss, you will have a deeper understanding of the real needs of people. You will experience what love is , what kindness is , and what kind of love and kindness you expect, so you may use it subconsciously to measure your own behavior.

When you miss, you will face life more openly, and you will no longer be afraid of death, because there are people who love you there. No matter what you believe in, no matter what circumstances you are in, no matter what difficulties you encounter, when you say, Mom, Dad, I will come to be with you when the time comes, you experience a rare peace and comfort. Missing will fill everyone's heart with a continuous softness.

You may be an atheist, your head may be full of science, you may believe in evolution, you may believe in quantum drift, you may reject any pseudoscience, you may also reject religion, whether it is the religion of the Vatican or the religion of Mao Zedong, you may not believe in an afterlife, you may not believe in a creator, do not believe in God, Bodhisattva, Marx, Hegel, Kant . . . You are proud of having an independent soul. But do you also miss loved ones who have passed away? Don't you really want to see them again? Do you believe that one day, in that unknowable place, you will be with them? When you think about them, when your soul communicates with their soul, you will feel your sincerity, humility, and the ease of no desire, only deep love, and longing to see them again. This feeling, can you simply attribute it to the action of memory cells in the brain? Isn't this a feeling of faith?

Faith is not seemingly pious prayers to the idol, not those secular performances that make you think you are superior to others. Faith is the firm belief and trust in certain things and concepts. Faith enables you to calm down and feel seriously amidst the hustle and bustle, brings you comfort in pain, lets you no longer be alone in the confusion. No matter how much its direct utilitarian effect is, it makes you have an emotion not only to pursue the satisfaction of interests in the secular environment. Missing is a kind of belief, it makes us humble, makes us have a sense of fear, and makes us have a place to hide in the huge waves of material desires.

Dear departed loved ones, I miss you. Because of my missing, you will always exist in this world, allowing me to enjoy things that cannot be obtained from other places. Only when this missing disappears in the bodies of those who loved you and those you loved, will you truly leave this world.

(December 2022)