Lately, I’ve been asking all my friends if they believe that there are people who can communicate with the dead. Kind of a weird and heavy icebreaker, but people usually have fairly strong opinions about it. I went to dinner with some friends the other night and in the middle of the conversation posed that question. My girlfriend hemmed and hawed a little, but her fiancee was surprisingly vehement. His eyes got all squinty and he maintained that nothing happens when you die. I was surprised because I expected HER to be the vehement defender of logic (she’s a scientist).
Even though I’m not particularly religious (raised Catholic) and I don’t necessarily believe there are mediums who can contact your dead relatives, I do wonder about the spark of life. Call it spirit, call it energy or whatever you call it, there’s undeniably SOMETHING that sets apart what’s alive from what’s not. You can look at a fallen bird and tell if it’s dead. It’s lost its spark.
When we are feeling peppy and particularly energetic, we say we feel ALIVE. When we have expended a lot of energy and work to achieve something (climbing a mountain, say), we feel alive. To paraphrase the first law of energy, energy is neither created nor destroyed. So what happens to the spark? Does it just dissipate and fade into the ether? Does it remain whole and journey somewhere else? Is it different for everyone?
No wonder religion is so full of reincarnation beliefs. Personally, I don’t know what happens but I think there is potential for just about anything. I can respect any religion’s views because I think, hey, it’s POSSIBLE. I brought this up with my husband last night. He, like me, isn’t sure about anything but is a very spiritual person. He’s always talking about how things affect his soul. So I know he knows what I mean. I speculated that maybe it’s when you experience the loss of someone important, knowing what happens next becomes more consuming.
My father passed away in 2000. When I think about where he is now, I can only think of a coffin full of bones. Morbid, I know, but I can’t get the image out of my head. I want to think that his spark, at least, has transformed into something good.
Also, when you find happiness with someone, the next stage seems to be fear of losing them. I can’t imagine what it was like for my mom to lose my dad, her partner of 28 years. He was much older than she, so he practically helped her to grow up. He was a friend, a mentor, a father to her children, a husband, everything.
I can’t imagine losing C , nor would I want to contemplate a life without him. It’s scary to feel so grown up, yet so vulnerable.
