For the first time in ages, I read the news today.
Oh boy.
Where do you think we go when we die?
The idea of the heaven is cute and warm and fuzzy, but I don't subscribe.
It's because I think I'm important and insignificant. I don't think you should have to earn or surrender your way into anything, like some sort of country club or that room in the airport where the rich people get to play, I don't like to think you can do whatever the hell you want as long as you have Jesus/Allah/schizophrenia/God/vodka. My brain isn't wired to accept that people can be punished forever and ever and ever. My brain isn't wired to believe you can be rewarded for murder or coercion but not simply for helping others and loving selflessly.
I seethe when people tell Jacob that people are in Heaven, watching him. One, how the heck do you know where the essence of your dead mother is, when you can't even find your keys? Two, your neighbor was a bitch, and if there is anywhere for her to go after she kicked it, it wasn't up. And don't tell my kid that people are secretly watching him. How would you feel if I told you that someone was secretly watching you? Not good. Jacob doesn't know what or where or why Heaven is. He doesn't need to know. He's only three. I teach him about things that he can understand through touch and sight and smell and taste and sound. Things he can grasp. We have time later for the bigger things.
If there is a place you go for eternity, you wouldn't be able to get out or see out. You're there and you're there for eternity.
Kind of (hopefully) like the hole they toss you in.
No angels or demons or couriers or dug up corpses.
I don't tend to believe we are anywhere for good. I find comfort in hauntings, real or imagined. The same way some people find comfort in the fact that someday they will be in Heaven with their family.
Reincarnation sounds nice.
There is a line in the movie Vanilla Sky where Sofia says "I'll tell you in another life, when we are both cats".
I want that. I want to lie together in a sunbeam, in one hundred years from now. Just you and me and our philosophy that won't matter much to anyone but us by then and we can laugh and laugh and laugh at how serious it all seemed now. Our biggest problem will be puking up chunks of our own hair. Won't that be nice?
Maybe we have endless go-arounds at things so we can truly understand what it is like to be one another. A man, a woman, sick, well, ugly, beautiful, rich, poor, repressive, oppressed, black, white, red, yellow. And then when we get through ourselves we move on to other things. A beloved kitten, a slaughtered pig, a work horse, a show dog, a beetle, a daisy, the wind, a tiny magnetic fraction of aurora borealis.
The idea of many lives makes it easier for me to understand why some people are so cruel. It's not that they are bad people, just a bit on the newer side of all this mess.
It makes it easier for me to understand why some people have it so hard. It's not that they are cursed, just that they are learning something. Something they will take with them and use to help pull others out of a shitty situation.
I like to think that when my life leaves me, it goes somewhere else to do other things. Like the way I explained treedeath to Jake.
I like to think that when your life leaves you, it goes somewhere to do something close to my life. If you are going to secretly watch me, I'd like you to do it by growing as roses on my front walk. I wanna be your dog. I like to think that we have been traveling in this twisty turny topsy turvy little pack of souls for ages. I love the immediate connection one finds with certain people that makes us feel that we've known one another forever. Maybe, just maybe...
Or maybe we don't go anywhere or do anything. That sounds delicious. We just curl up and cease to be. Our day is done. The world keeps on spinning. Yes please. I tend to get tired. I could use the rest.
You know, I don't really care what happens to us. I don't normally think about it, except every once in awhile when it comes up among friends or the JehovahsWitnessingMormonsbeingBornAgainasHariKrishnas come knocking or Jake is dropping hints that he may be thinking that this all ends. That sometimes we don't get better when we get sick or hit by a bus.
I don't worry about it, I don't work towards it, I don't cry about it, I accept it as part of life.
I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, why should I? It's going to happen anyway.
I was probably pretty freaked when I was being born, but that turned out okay. I'm confident death is the same. But I do loveLoveLOVE to know what people believe happens to them. So what is your take on this whole thing?
And while we are at it, I want to be cremated immediately, no viewing, no headstone, no service, no casket. Big party. Smiles instead of tears, because we had an awesome time while it lasted.
Earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, funk to funky.
That's how I want to go out.
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30 degrees {comments}:
you are very cute, and a great writer.
I like the idea that we are all made of matter, and we all matter, and we become different things - the grass, the ocean, a cloud, a robin, in little pieces here and there.
I think there might be some sort of spirit some sort of intangible thing that might stick around or float around or continue to be in someway for some amount of time after you die, but I know know what it is or if I even really believe that, but I don't NOT believe it.
I don't believe in god, or hell, or heaven, or gods for that matter.
I think people live on in memories and in grandchildren and in that certain song that reminds you of that certain time.
I like the idea of reincarnation. But in the Albert Brooks/Defending Your Life kind of way. You must learn from your life and go and do more....better. I like that. But regardless who is right and who isn't....I intend to enjoy the time I have here, with the people that are present and accounted for, and make my life more enriched as a result. You are one of those people! Come visit!
I struggle with what happens after death. But I love that line from Vanilla Sky. I want to think there's a going on of some sort. Something different from exactly what's going on this time around. A new experience but still experiencing. I don't know if it matters to me whether that be heaven or a continuation of this conscience or another human lifetime or a blade of grass. But I find comfort in the idea of continuing.
As for people watching poor Jake. I had a friend growing up terrified of Santa because he was watching her all the time to see if she was being naughty or nice. Sometimes people just don't think about the things they say, especially to kids. I try. Lucky for kids they aren't exposed to me very often.
I just can't figure out how there is nothing after we go. I mean, you can't destroy energy and we are, by definition, kinetic beings. It has to go somewhere.
I love science, even if I don't always understand it.
I hope I make the stars shine and the waves roll and the flowers grow with my energy.
Ugh, don't even get me started on this one!
I am so NOT religious. Eric is to the point now where he is starting to ask about death and says that when we die we go to heaven (which he got from his Grandmother). I don't believe that when we die we just end, I don't know how that could be possible. I do think that everyone has a soul, whatever happens to that soul, I won't know until I die. I do believe that people we know, even our pets are with us in spirit after they die. I do not want to believe that they are watching us when we are on the toilet or in the shower. I have always been so facinated with death.
I also want to be cremated right away. Why the heck would I want all of my family members to stare at me after I am dead all coated in make-up and stuff!
"How the heck do you know where the essence of your dead mother is, when you can't even find your keys?"--LOVE this line! I laughed out loud when I read it. :0
I am with you on the where we go thing. Energy is never destroyed, just transferred. When I die and my carcass decomposes it will provide for other life. Life that will continue to create until it's time too has passed. Then the energy transference begins again.
In general, I don't believe in anything that can't be proven. I guess it's a little bit of the scientist left in me. Ergo, I don't really believe in anything related to 'afterlife'. Knowing that this keeps my mother up at night is a fun little bonus!
I like the idea of reincarnation as well. I hope that is what happens. I like the funk to funky...makes me think of george michaels.
Seriously, GET OUT OF MY BRAIN!!!!
Those things you just wrote, all of it, even the comment you made about us being energy. That's everything the way "I" think.
I believe that we are the Earth. Believe in what's here, what you see, what you get from it. Respect it.
On the other hand, what if we do keep coming back again and again, a lesson to be learned, like you said, to teach us what it's like to be different, to be different colors, races, etc...
I seriously LOVE this post. It's perfection. Absolute utter ME. I bow down to you that you actually made it all into words on a page.
meg and i have made a pledge to haunt the shit out of each other after we're dead. i will haunt all of my friends.
i kind of like to think that we go where we think we're going to go. i intend to haunt people for a while, and then be reincarnated. my aunt is going to heaven, where she'll watch movies of people she knew on earth and *think* she's watching over us. only voyeurs go to heaven. my mom is going to decompose, her electrical energy dissipated.
for all our different beliefs, different ends. it's no good, otherwise.
It seems that we have a lot in common on this topic. I enjoyed reading this. A lot of what you have written, I've said outloud to my husband and my friend.
I've always hated it when people tell me people are in Heaven watching over me, too. Lame. I want to believe they are in a better place (and this is only applicable to those who have died after years of suffering). But I don't like the idea of my grandpa watching me now...I do a lot of things I don't think he'd be too cool with.
Reincarnation? Either a cat or a whale. I love sleeping and I love being in water. So, yeah, either one. But only a cat if I get to be a cat that lives fat in a nice house...it would suck if I ended up being a cat that lived in those Asian countries that eat cat. And only a whale if I can be protected and not hunted so people can make cosmetics out of me.
Also, I love your Beatles reference. I didn't even have to click the link but I did start singing the song
"...woke up, fell outta bed..."
I'm not 100% sure what I believe. I grew up in church so a lot of that is hanging in there at the corners of my mind. I think I believe it in part. I don't like the angle of male domination over subservient females. I think religion works out really well for men. Who wouldn't want to be master and supreme ruler in their own home? What better way is there to live? He gets to tower over his wife/family/children and have final say over everything and it's all condoned by religion.
That part I don't like.
i used to be 100% behind the idea of heaven, but have moved elsewhere within the last 5 years or so. the thing is im not all that sure 'what' elsewhere means...and im oddly okay with that. i tend to be the type that HAS to figure things out.
to really expound on this subject would take at least 3 pages of replying...i also tend to have diarrhea of the mouth...or fingers in this case...diarrhea fingers?? wow that sounds pretty foul...
Oh, goodness, after reading all the comments I probably should just not comment.
I went to Caholic School for twelve years and if you read my father's day tribute you could probably figure out I was raised Catholic and I will be honest, I am a practicing Catholic. Now, that being said, I am a human being that questions man made religion. I too wonder, if there is really a heaven and hell? I question, just like everyone else if there is anything after death? I don't believe in the traditional Heaven, where it is up in the sky and people are looking down on us. I believe our souls go to a better place, a place we as humans cannot understand. As far as Hell, I grapple with this too, sometimes I think Earth, you know the here and now, is our Hell!
But most of all, I just try and go through life avoiding the thoughts and pretending I'm living forever!!!(lol)
No matter what you believe, you should never tell a child that someone is watching him. It's bad enough to have to check for monsters under the bed, but for bitchy ex-neighbors as well? Too much.
The one bit of sense I took from the nonsense of my childhood was the notion that maybe just maybe we don't get to control that part. Be good for goodness sake. When we get where/whatever it is, well, it will sort itself out. And hopefully by the time it gets itself sorted out, our faulty memories will have forgotten to point fingers at each other and say I told you so. Nothing sucks the fun out of a party like a finger pointing know-it-all.
It drives me nuts when folks say those things to my kids. Worse is when they say santa is watching (we don't do santa).
I also don't believe in the Heaven or Hell thing, but I do believe in spirits/ghosts. I think a part of you lives on in some way, but only the strong efforts to show themselves are the ones people see.
I'd like to think that in the future (probably not the near future) that we could export your brain or just your conciousness to another entity and live on in some way, ala Ghost In The Shell. That would be a whole other can of worms though, as what would death really encompass if you weren't even in your original body?
I can give the very very most basic. There's much more to it than this though. Not more hoops or whatever, just more to it.
If you notice, in life God doesn't force himself on us without our consent. His people might (sorry about that, by the way), but he doesn't very often. The thing is that I do think that God really is the best thing for us, he's the one who is the most perfect in love and in provision and in every other thing.
With that, I honestly think that God gives us whatever we have pursued most definitively with our lives. I think if it's him then he gives us all of him. If he is really the most supreme in love, that should be and is the definition of Heaven.
If it's something else that we've pursued more than God himself, then he doesn't force himself into our lives, and he's willing to remove himself completely as a matter of fact. I think Kevin Smith had it totally right in Dogma, Hell really just is the absence of God.
Again, that's the most simplistic. And there is more to it.
Oh, and I don't believe that people come back to haunt us.
The one thing that I know is that I dont know, nor does anyone else who professes to know really know what happens when we die. The definition of faith is belief in unproven facts. Faith is not knowledge, it is the absense thereof. Im a gambler. Ill take my chances living a good, fun, slightly adulterated life of critical thinking. If there is a God and he sends me to hell for using the brain he gave me, then so be it. If hell is full of people like me at least we can have a damn good party while we burn.
Wow! Wouldn't it be fun if all of your commentors could get together for a night?
Well, I lose my keys at least twice a week, and my dead mother's essence is in the Pacific Ocean. Lucky for her, so is my dad's.
I think Hell was invented to scare the crap out of us when we were kids. It worked on me. As far as Heaven, or the next level of existence, I'm split on this one. My mom had two out-of-body expereinces (clinically [sp?]dead twice) and described them as warm, peaceful and loving. Since she never completed the journey and lived to tell about it, I think reincarnation as another form of matter, could be a possibility.
The Bible makes some good suggestions for living in the Ten Commandments, but I can't get behind the wife subservient to husband thing. I guess we just need to take what we feel works for us and discard the rest.
I have never seen a ghost, but I have felt a presence on many occasions. One of those occasions was probably my mom trying to get me off my fat butt to do some laundry!
Incredibly awesome post! You need to write a book, girl!
I've had periods of my life ( 7, 17...) when I was very freaked out about the endlessness of reincarnation, which I was raised to believe. It still can make my stomach drop late at night if I think about it too deeply.
For the most part, I try and live in the moment knowing that even in all those endless incarnations, I'll have to be doing whatever it is I'm doing.
I like the way your brain thinks about things.
It's hard to say because I do believe some people get haunted. I've been in houses while we were looking for places to live and felt things. Things that would make people think I'm ready for a straight jacket and padded cell. I've seen things too. sometimes it's creepy, and other times it's not.
I don't think there's a heaven or a hell. I think that's all a bunch of shit someone who wanted power made up so they could control the less educated masses a long time ago. I also think most organized religion is a complete crock and a racket. My in laws pray for me LOL.
Okay, so I love this and I love your comment. I have this ever-fluctuating and ever-hopeful faith about what happens after we die. And I tend to be more on the wavelength of my mother-in-law, who when speaking of the son she buried 13 years ago, said, "He was loved. He loved. I find it hard to believe that all he is now is some body rotting in the ground." That resonates with me.
Lora, this post is wonderful. Just when I think I have figured out what I believe happens when we die, I totally change my mind. I guess we will all find out eventually, right? Thanks for writing this. It gets the wheels churning for sure. I'll be looking forward to the post when you talk about how you explained mortality to Jacob. What age do kids usually start asking about those things (if they aren't prompted by a funeral)? I'm already starting to squirm thinking about explaining death to Turner. It was never explained to me by my parents and we didn't attend church; hence, the wondering mind . . . I don't think I would have believed any of them anyway. They lied about alot of things so that life wouldn't seem so harsh, which only made the truth more difficult. I'm glad nobody knows for sure what happens when we die. Maybe be all get to choose what we want to do when the time comes. That would be awesome.
I don't believe anyone earns their way into the presence of God. It's not Earth's Got Talent or something.
My friend's little girl told me the other day that she doesn't believe in god cuz the idea of some old bearded guy watching her from the clouds is just silly but that she likes the idea of heaven so she's keeping it. She's 5. She also says she wants to grow up and move to a state where she can marry another girl because girls are softer and smell nice and are prettier.
I want to be her 5 year old.
Now you have me thinking some very deep thoughts. Here's what I know right now...I don't buy into heaven, I can get into reincarnation, the idea of a rest appeals to me, and I don't want to be cremated.
We have my husband's grandfather in a little urn on our bookshelf, which I think is kind of cool (cool like he's dead, but he's still a part of our everyday lives) but still a little weird because some other relatives have him too. Either way, I still don't want to be cremated, ending up on my grandkid's bookshelf.
I like the party idea.
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