On the way to the library yesterday, I chatted with Doudou.

He asked: Mom, is there anyone in the world who dares to chew bitter medicine?

Yes, my grandma did. I remember when she had a toothache when I was a child, she put the root of an herb called Eight-clawed Golden Dragon on the painful area and chewed it directly. It was very bitter.

Doudou was thoughtful: Have your grandparents passed away?

Yes, my grandfather passed away when I was a freshman in junior high school, and my grandmother also left me when I was a sophomore in college.

Will you miss them?

Yes, I often dream about them, because they accompanied me through a very happy childhood.

Have you ever dreamed of a duel between your grandparents and my grandparents?

Haha, I was still immersed in missing them and was amused by Doudou: This really doesn’t happen.

Mom, each of us is going to die.

Well, yes. Everyone has to face death.

Yes, can you tell me about my birth?

Well, when you were just born, because I couldn’t move during the infusion, the nurse aunt put you in a cartoon red cotton-padded jacket. You lay on the trolley with your little eyes open. Look at the world.

Doudou smiled: Mom, we talked from death to birth again.

Yes, the end point for each of us is death, but it does not affect our ability to live well.

Will we live again after we die?

Well, there is a legend about reincarnation in China. Maybe you will become an animal in your next life.

Then I want to be a cat, and I don’t know if this legend is true.

Well, I think whether it is true or not, it can be seen that we respect death and yearn for life.

Doudou’s eyes suddenly lit up: Mom, we have talked about birth and death again.

Yes, that’s what it means to live toward death.

Coincidentally, we saw this book "Alive" in the bookstore. The author is Shuntaro Tanigawa, the standard bearer of modern Japanese poetry. This is an excerpt from his collection of poems "Two Billion Light Years of Loneliness" A poem, paired with a delicate, realistic, clean and pure painting style, allows us to feel the present moment in the sunshine and breeze.

Alive

Alive now

That is thirst

It is the dazzling sunlight shining down from the branches and leaves

It's a melody that suddenly comes to mind

It's a sneeze

It's holding hands with you

Alive

Alive now

Yesterday I saw the news about a girl "falling from a building". I was heartbroken and thought repeatedly about how we should provide life education to our children. Can Little Doudou understand the meaning of "living toward death"?

Here are some supplementary reading books, including Heidegger's "Being and Time". In the book, Heidegger's explanation of "life toward death" is: death and dying are two different existences. concept. Death can refer to a process, just like a person is on the verge of death from birth. Every year, every day, every hour, and even every minute we live is a process toward death. In this sense Human existence is a process toward death. Death refers to death, which is the true death of a person in a physiological sense and the end of a person's process of dying.

There are also "Born to Death" by Kitano Takeshi, "My Death Credits" by Kai-fu Lee, etc., and "Me and the Temple of Earth" by Shi Tiesheng, which can be used as expansion books and read with children. Along the way, I always felt that I was the one who gained more.