Death sounds terrible doesn’t it? Just the word itself sounds so harsh, so low-base, like the deepest-voiced opera singer (apparently called an Oktavist – who knew?). Hey, you and I both learned something today.
Then I thought, but death rhymes with breath. Hmm…
I think when you die you breathe again, just not in the sense that we know. You “breathe” in this sigh of relief, relief that your human suffering is now over.
Part of the suffering here is all the unknown, the inexplicable mysteries of life, the perpetual unanswered questions. I believe when you die you get the replay of all the things you missed, all the things you didn’t know you missed, and all the things you wish you had missed.
You get the truth.
Who shot JFK? Yep, you find out. Did we really land on the moon? Yep you (and your conspiracy theorist friends) find out. Did my boyfriend in 11th grade really cheat on me? Yep you find out. Where the hell did all those missing socks actually go? Phew, you finally find out.
And you finally learn about your loved ones–how they really felt about you, if they knew how you really felt about them. Yep, you find out.
I just can’t imagine that when you die there is nothing. Energy cannot be created and destroyed. We, our souls, are made up of energy.
So when you die, it makes sense that your soul has to go somewhere right? And whether your soul goes to “heaven”, “the other side”, or whatever you call it, I can’t imagine that you energetically just float around in that place all day with no questions answered.
That sounds like hell to me.
If I had just recently died, the least I would hope for was that I’d finally find out where the fuck those damn lost keys ended up every time. Geez, cut a sista a break.
Besides The Curious Case of the Lost Keys being solved, I imagine that you get to sit down with loved ones who have passed on before you and “roll the tape”.
You get to rewatch all the shit you did (and didn’t do) and you get to see all the behind-the-scenes goings-on that you weren’t privy to while here on Earth. Like any good movie, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll cringe with embarrassment and gasp in amazement.
You’ll get to chuckle at all the little shit, give a wink and an elbow to your guardian angels and go “good one, you got me that time Universe.”
Before I move on, for the record, I use the term angels (and “God” and any other religious term) loosely.
I think there are guardians of a sort up there, out there, over there, wherever. They are passed on souls who know more shit than we do, who try to guide us in our Earthly lives. They give you a high five when the tape replays your good deeds, and they fold their arms and say “we got some shit to work on” when you fucked up. I call them angels because it’s just easier and you know what I’m saying.
No, I’m not Catholic. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
You, your guardian angels and loved ones are all up there having a drink and smoke and laughing at the comedy of your life. Yes, I believe you can drink and smoke and eat whatever you want when you’ve passed on. It is called Heaven right?
Anyway, then you get to the big stuff, the serious drama portion of your life movie.
Questions arise like “what was my friend thinking before we had that falling out and never talked again? Did my partner really betray me? Was I a good parent, friend, spouse? Was I selfless enough? Grateful enough? Did I stay true to myself? Did I love enough?
Was I a good person?
And your grandfather or grandmother or any other dead person who is special to you sits you down like it’s Monday morning in an NFL conference room and plays it all back.
You get to see how you fumbled, got intercepted, didn’t see that giant lineman coming and got sacked. You also get to admire that time you had the guts to go for it on 4th down. You get to feel proud for the touchdowns you scored and for that special time you dared to throw that one long hail mary pass that landed.
You see it all, I like to think, hope. But what do I know? I don’t exactly talk to dead people on the reg to get the inside scoop.
Okay, not on the reg, but I have talked with, or least communicated through a medium with, dead people. Call me crazy. Go ahead, you wouldn’t be the first.
But guess what, dead people only tell you what you need to know, not what you want to know. Dead men tell no tales. That saying exists for a reason, because they sure fucking don’t. It’s infuriating really. I’ve gone to a lot of mediums and never fully got the whole story or heard the exact words I wanted to hear.
Are they all just scam artists? Is the ability to talk to dead people just a bunch of baloney?
Nope. That wasn’t it.
I heard what I needed to hear, and only that. The rest is up to me. Free will and all. Too much information would fuck it all up.
Mediums don’t have all the answers, the dead aren’t allowed to tell them anyway. I think the dead are beholden to some kind of spiritual NDA. Knowing everything would ruin all the fun.
And that’s just it, we all take life too seriously, yours truly very much included. We’re supposed to enjoy this ride, yes even the downs of the “ups and downs”.
And the downs can get pretty fucking deep.
But if we knew the how, the why and every other answer to every question we ever had, a short ride it would be. There’d be nothing left to discover, nothing left to learn through raw human experience.
I know we all wish we could play it back right now, in the present, maybe in an attempt to prove something, exonerate yourself or someone else, or maybe just for the chance to simply re-word that choice awkward conversation.
Or maybe just because you want a freaking explanation of why it fucking snowed when the weatherman swore it wouldn’t, AGAIN!
At one time or another, we all wish we had a re-do. But life isn’t exactly a game of Frogger. Splat! Start Over.
And missing persons, c’mon, who doesn’t want to know what happened to all those people? Your loved one just poof! goes missing one day never to return? What the hell happened?
I can’t imagine a worse torture than not knowing that. I’ve been through abuse and the death of someone close to me from suicide, and I still think having someone you love go missing has to be the most agonizing thing ever, just sayin.
But amid all the anguish, pain and suffering that is human life, it’s the belief that there is a replay at the end that gives me solace. I’m happy to wait MANY (knock on wood) years until my tape gets rolled back to me. My belief makes me feel a little less anxious (a little) about the things I don’t know in life and probably never will, on this side.
The other side though, that’s the side of “that which we finally come to know.”
The side of revelation.
So what happens on the other side after you’ve watched the movie of your life and all is dissected, analyzed and critiqued?
Well, you fully see the lessons you learned and the growth your soul made. You see the strides you made and the lengths you still have to go, then you get sent back down again. You get many of these trips through the human amusement park called life.
Alas, (no one uses that word anymore) we are destined to forget all that our soul has learned each time we get beamed down. It’s necessary for us to forget because otherwise we’d be in a serious mind-fuck while we’re here doing this human thing.
Not sure what made me want to write about all this today. I mean, I think I always kind of think about this stuff. Some may say it’s morbid, I say it’s just expanding your mind.
Maybe I’ve expanded yours? That’s one of the reasons why we’re here in the first place: sharing, helping, caring.
I hope sharing my thoughts helps you see the world a little differently. I don’t want to scare anyone with all this death talk. Hey, you certainly don’t have to believe in any of this stuff anyway. Believe what you want. Who am I to say?
But if you’re just a little curious to see different points of view on different topics, stay tuned.
And take a breath. Death is simply the other side, a place of answers, exhalation, and peace.
It’s where you sit down after the game is over and the work is done, take a relaxing breath, and with a smile on your face say, “okay coach, go ahead, roll the tape”.
❤️
CM
12/23/23
