失独父母的丧痛与生命意义回归

Reconstruction of the Meaning of Life and Bereavement for Parents Who Lost Their Only Child

失独给失独父母带来了巨大的丧痛,也使得他们丧失了把繁衍后代作为生命延续和追求生物学意义上的永生的可能。从中国的文化传统来看,失独还意味着无法承续“香火”和传宗接代,甚至还有“无能”“无德”的文化隐喻,这对失独父母的世界观和生命意义提出了重要挑战。目前追求肉体生命的真正永生还无法实现,但我们不仅可以通过繁衍后代,还可以通过“立德、立功、立言”等多种创造个人成就和社会价值的方式来实现象征意义上的永生。人生有意义不完全依赖于人能否繁衍和生命的长度,当我们充分发展自己的潜能和创造力、投身于一件有意义的事情时,便在实现意义的过程中超越了自己。死亡的必然性提醒我们要规划有限的生命时间去追求那些值得做的事情,并让我们存有敬畏之心和过一种有道德规约的生活。

Loss of the only child has brought great sorrow to parents,and deprived them of the possibility of continuing life and pursuing immortality in the biological sense.From the perspective of Chinese cultural tradition,loss of the only child also means that it is impossible to inherit"burning incense"and carry on the family line,and even the cultural metaphors of"incompetence"and"immorality"pose an important challenge to the world outlook and meaning of life of the parents.At present,the pursuit of real immortality of physical life cannot be achieved,but we can achieve symbolic immortality not only through the reproduction of next generations and next generations,but also through the creation of personal achievements and social values such as"virtue,contributions,writing".The meaning of life does not wholly depend on whether people can reproduction and the length of life.When we fully develop our potential and creativity and devote ourselves to a meaningful thing,we transcend ourselves in the process of realizing meaning.The inevitability of death reminds us to plan our limited time to pursue what is worth doing,and to live in awe and a moral life.