Where Do We Go When We Die?

July 7, 2009

Because of all the unexpected deaths recently–Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays… and my next door neighbor–the past couple of weeks have left me thinking about the BIG questions:

Why are we here?

How do we make the most of our lives?

Am I doing the right things?

How much longer do I have with my loved ones?

Where do we go when we die?

Are these tiny pieces of bone (pictured above) all that remains of a life well lived?!

As I was pondering these questions, I looked back to my journal entries from March of last year, when my dad died. Shortly after finding out he had passed away, I wrote this entry:

The thing that is difficult about losing my dad is that, for as long as I can remember, he has been the reason for almost everything I did. I inherited his creativity and resourcefulness, as well as a sense of adventure in every day life. Almost every choice I made was to make him proud of me, earn his love and approval, or to rebel against him. My life has been lived in reference to him. Even the boys I chose to date were selected because of how they resembled or differed from my dad.

What makes it easier to bear is that we (my siblings and I) can finally have some closure and move on with our lives. For nine years we have never been able to grieve the loss of my mother and put it past us because we were focused on my dad’s needs. We felt like we had lost both our parents the day of the accident, but he was still alive… and suffering.

He was widowed and lonely. He was paraplegic and in excruciating pain. He was bipolar and ruining his friendships, and everything he ever worked to achieve. And he was tortured by the guilt of knowing he caused it all when he crashed his plane. He did not want to be alive, and I don’t blame him!

When I look back at pictures of their life together, I am struck by how fully my parents lived their short lives. They visited so many beautiful places, met countless interesting people, and tried an endless array of activities: flying, ultralights, motorcycles, classic cars, trains, boats, skiing, ice-skating, etc. They look so happy in all those pictures.

So I’d like to believe they are now together again, exploring the spiritual world. I can imagine my mom spending the past nine years hovering over us, trying to help us find our way through grief and back to life. But now that my dad is there, they can both go off and enjoy the afterlife, knowing their kids will be fine. I’d LIKE to believe this… but I don’t. I still don’t know exactly WHAT I believe happens after death.

Condsidering Possibilities

I don’t believe in heaven and hell because I can’t imagine a loving God would send ANY of his children to a fiery inferno, no matter how badly they behaved. So, removing the possibility of hell, there could still be Nirvana… where they’d be frolicking together. He had to stay on Earth nine extra years to suffer and pay for things he may have done in this life, like being proud and selfish. She got to go straight there, because she was practically an angel during her lifetime. This version is the most comforting to me… but it feels a little too much like the Santa story.

I don’t really believe there is NOTHING after we die… that you are alive one day and then there is just a dark void where your “essence” once was. This does not seem to comply with the laws of physics, like conservation of energy. Where does that tremendous life energy go when it leaves the body? I don’t know; but it must go somewhere!

I’m not convinced about the idea of reincarnation, and I’m not even sure why. It seems incredibly frustrating, like there would have to be some sort of Universal HR department keeping track of each person’s every activity in this life to determine how they should be “placed” in the next. This doesn’t even work in small companies; I can’t imagine it on such a huge scale.

I guess I lean more towards a Taoist view… that we return to the “stuff” from whence we came: Nature and the cycle of life. We are all part of the same essence or spirit that, from time to time, takes a human form to have a human experience. When that journey is done, the human form expires and the spirit returns to its source. Is this God? Or the Collective Consciousness? Or Mother Nature? Or Sacred Earth? I really don’t know. I won’t find out until it’s my turn.

Maybe I’ll get to be with my parents again. Or maybe I will forget everything about this life, every attachment and every disappointment, and just find peace… Eternal Peace.

That was what I wrote a year ago, the last time I found myself pondering the big questions. Today, in light of all these recent deaths, I’m going to have to say I still feel the same way. What are your views on this topic? Have you thought about what you believe… and why?

*

If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, or StumbleUpon.

Tuesdays through Thursdays, comments are closed on Quest for Balance (here’s why). Feel free to contact me directly at:

MyQuestForBalance (at) gmail (dot) com.

Thanks!!!

No related posts.

Posted in acceptance, grief, inner peace