Grief, the Afterlife, and a Really Good Song

 I recently lost someone very close to me and I've been struggling with it. Actually this happens to me everytime someone close to me dies, especially if they have religious beliefs.

I'm an atheist. After everything that I've seen in my life I can't bring myself to believe in a god. I've met men who have committed acts so evil that it would make you throw up. If you just look at the world you can't help but wonder. Why would a god make someone suffer with cancer? Why would a god allow fatal childhood brain cancer? What did that child do to deserve to spend their whole life suffering? What does anyone do to deserve to suffer and then die? Why did the best musician i ever knew die in college? Why did my friend become locked in his body, constantly in pain? Why did a garage fall on my 3rd grade friend? War, disease, crime, poverty, all these things could go away with the flick of a magic wrist. But they don't.

As a sort of aside I was raised Catholic. I saw the education all the way through. In fact, the person whose death triggered this line of thinking was my confirmation sponsor. When the Bishop put his hand on my shoulder to bless me becoming a full member of the Catholic church, he leaned in and whispered into my ear, "Who do you have in the Knicks game tonight?" He was later held liable for covering up child abuse in his diocese. 

The priest that baptized me was transferred to our small parish to hide him from accusations of child molestation in another parish. When he got to old to do priestly things he was replaced with a priest who ended up doing time in federal prison for soliciting children on the internet. They got up every Sunday and preached at us all the while lusting after children.

As you can imagine I don't consider myself part of that church anymore.

Anyway, when someone dies I want them to be right. People sacrifice so much to their gods, time, money, who knows what else, I want them to have that peace they worked for. 

Personally I used to be ok with something I remembered Carl Sagan saying when we watched Cosmos in 8th grade. He said that he thought at the moment of death the energy in our brains goes out and spreads through the universe, because if energy can not be created or destroyed it has to go somewhere. 

But I wonder if there is an afterlife. Somewhere where your grandmother greets you with that apple pie you haven't had for a while. Where grandpa is ready to take you fishing again. A place of happiness, where suffering isn't even a memory.

Does there have to be a god for that to be true. I'd don't know. Maybe I don't understand. Someone recently compared my trying to figure this out to giving George Washington your cell phone to FaceTime with someone on the international space station about dinosaurs.

So for as much as I don't believe in a god and how evil I find most organized religions somedays I still want there to be an afterlife where my friends and loved ones are comfortable and happy.

It makes me sad that people put up gates to keep people out of the afterlife. Every religion has rules about who gets in and who doesn't. If any of those are true I'll never see my family again. Maybe that's when you simply cease to exist?

There I go trying to figure things out again. Maybe the best thing to do is to live like this is it. Enjoy life, go on that vacation, have that piece of pie and enjoy your family when you do it. Take your kids to a baseball game. Go to dinner with your parents. Always pick up your phone because all we know is that in the end we have nothing but memories of our loved ones. Maybe there's more, maybe there's not so why risk it?

Thank you Cameron Whitcomb for providing the soundtrack to my pondering, check out his video for Rocking Chair here:



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Struggle with Mental Health, or Why I've Been Weird

          T o be perfectly blunt, for more than two years I have been receiving treatment for severe depression and anxiety. This means, of course, that I have been suffering from severe depression and anxiety for much longer than that. I honestly don’t know how long I’ve been like this. The suffering just became part of who I am.             When I say I have severe depression I don’t mean that sometimes I get sad. I mean that the voice in my head that should represents “me” is constantly telling me that I’m not good enough, that no one likes me, that no one loves me and that the my world, my life, is never going to get any better.             Constantly.             Other times its worse. Other times I think I should kill myself. I think that my family and friend...
Read more

Facing the Hard Truth

I reached, what I think, was my lowest point ever Saturday night into Sunday morning. I didn't want to be alive anymore. I wrestled with this for hours from late into the night into early in the morning. Finally, some rational part of my brain that was still functioning told me to call 988. I was immediatley put through to a counselor. For an hour I poured out everything that was wrong with my life, chronic health issues, mental health issues, a missed promotion, a shitty job. For an hour I spewed and the man on the other end of the phone never tried to fix me or solve any of issues. He just calmed me down. I'm not dead so his methods worked. But as I searched for what had driven me so low the answer came in a way I was not expecting. I had hopes, dreams, expectations, and wants. I built things up in my head, good things might happen to me, and time after time after time after time I was disappointed. Some were just minor that bummed me out for a little while. Others were bigg...
Read more

My Pills: A Helpful Tool

Image
 I take pills when I get up in the morning. I take a pill at dinner. I take pills before I go to bed. They do all different things. There's anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, and a blood pressure pill. There's supplements that help the prescription pills or help to offset the side effects. The morning pile When I look at my pill piles I always remember my grandmother complaining that she took too many pills. I also think about all the people you meet, see on TV, or online who say "I tried those pills and I didn't feel like myself." The evening pile Then I think about myself and myself sucks. I have bipolar one. Without the pills small things became a crisis. I might not be able to get out of bed under the crushing weight of my depression. On the other hand I might become so manic that my speech could be nonsensical and my whole body would shake and sweat. Either could make me want to end it all. My little dinner time treat With the pills I'm much more level. A...
Read more