When the staff member heard that Wang Meiyun was my aunt, his eyes lit up. He quickly found a bunch of information and then took me to find the urn.
The little female ghost couldn't stop laughing, and she apologized to me with an embarrassed look on her face, saying she had taken advantage of me.
Actually, it doesn't matter. After all, she has been dead for more than thirty years. If she were still alive, she would be in her fifties now. It would be okay to call her aunt.
Besides, who asked me to owe it? Why do you think I promised her this and gave her a hairy renewal fee?
In one fell swoop, he had saved himself from twenty or thirty years of famine!
I bit the bullet and went to a remote warehouse with the staff. Then someone opened the warehouse door, and I saw a pile of urns...
This warehouse is also full of compartments for storing ashes, but it is very simple and deserted. At a glance, there must be at least hundreds of urns inside.
I took a deep breath, pointed inside and asked, "Are these all expired ashes? Are they all unclaimed?"
The staff member sighed: "Yes, they all expire over the years, ranging from more than ten years to more than thirty years."
I asked again: "Then why no one comes to renew? Are they all abandoned by family members?"
He shook his head: "That's not entirely true. In fact, many of them are nameless, such as some homeless people, who basically have no identity or family. Of course, there are also some who have family members. , but I couldn’t contact my family, so I had to keep it like this.”
I asked again: "How do you usually deal with situations like this?"
He said: "We can only save it first, because there is really no place. Although the funeral home has regulations and there are requirements for this storage period, in fact, there are many problems with overdue payment and non-renewal. There is nothing we can do and we can't contact the family members." , You can’t have your ashes spread by others.”
This is indeed a problem. It is actually quite good for a funeral home to be able to do this. Those who did not renew their fees have been deposited for 20 or 30 years.
He added: "There is nothing we can do now. We really can't save anymore. We have issued announcements countless times, asking everyone to come to collect or renew as soon as possible, otherwise it will be dealt with centrally. Some family members have come to collect, but still There are a lot of unclaimed ashes, and I guess some of the ashes have been forgotten by their families. What you see here is the first batch, there are probably more than a hundred, and there will be more in the future."
He said that some of the ashes had been forgotten by the family, which touched me a little.
Looking at the densely packed urns in front of me, I couldn't help but sigh. Twenty or thirty years ago, these were all living people.
They live in this city just like us. They get up early to go to work, chat with friends, play skewers at parties, and go home to spend time with their wives and children at night.
Among them are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, and all kinds of life roles...
But now, they have all turned into small boxes, all alone and neatly placed in this cold warehouse, waiting for their relatives to claim them.
Some of the wooden urns even looked oxidized and rotted due to their age.
At this time, the little female ghost Wang Meiyun had floated into the warehouse, looking for her urn.
The staff member also took me all the way inside and told me that in fact, in recent years, through phone calls, media, newspapers, letters, etc., they have been calling on family members to claim the ashes, or to come to the funeral home to visit the deceased. Forgotten relatives.
However, the addresses and contact information of many family members who were originally registered have changed, which puts the funeral home in a difficult situation, because many of the reminder letters sent to family members were returned by the post office because "no such person was found", or they were never heard from again.
Of course, some overdue ashes are taken away or retained every year, but at the same time, new overdue ashes are produced, creating an endless cycle.
He said that for humanitarian reasons, the funeral home will continue to store these expired ashes. However, due to constraints such as limited space and management costs, the expired ashes have indeed had a great impact on the daily work of the funeral home.
Therefore, this time they want to carry out a collective ecological burial for these expired ashes.
The so-called ecological burial means that no grave head is left in the cemetery, and flowers, plants and trees are planted on it, so that the ashes can coexist with the earth and integrate with nature.
Listening to his story and walking among the urns, many ghosts seemed to appear in front of my eyes. They stood alone next to the urns, looking at us expressionlessly, like wakers.
At the same time, there was a sad look on their faces, and there was no hope or expectation in their empty eyes.
I know that these ghosts have long been forgotten, no one worships them, and no one cares about them. Waiting for their fate, they can only disappear into smoke.
Looking at this, I feel quite uncomfortable, because I can only watch, but I can't do anything to help them.
I am also a poor person and cannot afford to pay for so many people...
At this time, the staff stopped and looked at an urn in front of them.
At the same time, the little female ghost also stopped. She stood next to us and reached out to hug the urn.
"Ah, my ashes..."
This sentence was a bit scary, but she looked very happy.
"Wang Meiyun, she died in 1981. This is your aunt, right?"
The staff asked me, pointing to the information on the urn.
I scratched my head: "Uh... yes, she is. Actually, she is not an aunt. I only met her last night."
The staff member was stunned for a moment: "What did you say?"
I hurriedly said: "Nothing, nothing. In fact, she gave me a dream, saying that her ashes were going to be disposed of, and she asked me to help her take a look. I thought that if I renew the fee for another year, I can still I can afford it. If you say twenty or thirty years, I really don’t have that much money..."
He also scratched his head a little, thought for a while and said: "Actually, it's not that expensive. If it's an upper or lower position, it costs 100 yuan a year, which is only two to three thousand."
I asked, "How much does the middle seat cost?"
He said: "It's more expensive in the middle, 200 a year."
Look, this is the naked reality. Those who have no money can only rely on the top or the bottom when they die, while those with money can be in the middle.
The little female ghost held the urn and smiled happily, and said to me next to her: "If you give me a few more years, I will thank you for eight generations of ancestors."
I rolled my eyes at her and said in my heart: "Go, go, my eight generations of ancestors don't need your thanks. My ancestors have to scold me for being a prodigal. It would be nice to have so much money to honor them..."
Fortunately, I have a sharp mind and I have an idea as soon as I think about it, so I said to the staff.
"Let's see if you can give me this urn. Anyway, you have to deal with it as ownerless. Let me handle it for you. This will save you trouble."
The staff looked at me for several seconds and said, "You look honest and honest, but you are very conceited. I almost asked you to go around and take the urn away. You have to make up for the money you spent in the previous years!"
