What happens when...
What happens when we die? Death has never been something to shake me. I can remember only one instance when I have been so devastated to learn someone has died. Maybe the whole thing is glorified in a way by romantic movies and the like. That is, when someone dies there are two ways to respond: you can deal with it, or you can pretend. In that instance we learn of someone's death, we make a seemingly subconscious decision to react in one way or the other. Most times, I can recall, when I learned of someone's death, I almost forced myself into tears, regardless of whether or not someone more greatly affected was nearby. I wanted to feel remorse for this departure, but it felt inauthentic. My intuition told me otherwise, but I chose to override it. Death, it seems, is not the issue. The problem is with how we react.
I started mourning my father's death two years before he died. That mourning endured through every moment of those two years; it hasn't stopped. I haven't stopped. Mentally, I have found a stable modus operandi. For the most part, I can maintain composure and poise in a given situation. Hardwired to be a person of reason, I usually over-think anything that otherwise drags behind it a heavy sadness. This is not to say that I avoid dealing with his death, but rather that I deal in a very cold, detached sort of way. If there existed a certain numeric equation that, upon solving, would "solve" my internal dilemma, I would probably accept it as a proper form of grief (okay, maybe not). All this having been said, I find my mind being constantly overridden by my physical experience.
In passing, I see an old man with crippled hands. They look like Dad's. I overhear someone lecturing his son. He sounds like Dad. On a trip to San Antonio, Texas I saw a man in a wheelchair at the Alamo (which, I feel, is gloomy attraction) who could have passed for my old man in a police line up. His slightly nerdy polo shirt hung loosely from his shoulders, with evidence of his hefty former self, the self before sickness, pressing against the bottom of the shirt; perhaps he loved sweets like Dad did. His hands, collapsed and curled like a spider after it, too, faces its demise. The Alamo man even had the nerve to steal my father's signature haircut, though, upon further recollection, I realize that his part fell on the opposite side as Dad's. I suppose I can forgive that. The man soon sensed that he was being watched, and was quick to site me as the source of said sensation. Embarrassed, I pretended to be looking at the scenery around him in the Alamo courtyard. This was most disconcerting. I wanted to stare at him all day. I wanted to get closer to him, to see if he was short of breath like Dad became at the end, to see if his brown hair smelled like day-old scalp, to see if he somehow thought that I, too, seemed familiar. I wanted to hug him and tell him my story. It would comfort me greatly, and perhaps it would, in some strange way, comfort him, too. I wanted to see if the muscle and fat had slipped off his shoulders. I wanted him to tell me to clean my room, to go help my mother in the kitchen, to quit pulling my sister's hair. Completely enthralled by his incredible resemblance to my father, in that moment, I wanted him to be my father.
Dad was always quick to give advice, and seemed to have an answer for everything; I hated that! Nobody likes a know it all, and my Dad knew it all. And, in the event he was subpoenaed to answer a question for which he knew not the answer, he quickly assembled his collection of near-words (such as "selfishlessness"...he always used "nesses" to sound more refined) into a convincing and irritating reply. Now that he is gone, it is quiet. No one tells me what to do. No one asks me to reconsider my moral choices. No one in this realm of being, that is.
When I was a young boy, heaven was "up there." It was physically located somewhere in the deeper regions of space. If Dad had died between the ages of 6 and 13, he would be an asteroid. Thereafter, I developed a more universal sense of heaven whose access was not limited to caucasian, non-smoking, drug-free, heterosexual, God-fearing Christians, but was rather open to every single person in the world. I also shifted to a view of "Heaven" in terms of a concept, rather than a place. Even in our Lord's Prayer, we ask that God's "will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Though the language of the time was that of separation from heaven as a place, the language used in the Bible which suggests that the kingdom of heaven be brought about on earth suggests heaven as an ideal state, a nirvana, an enlightenment. It's our job, regardless of our religion, to work toward this ideal world. Why else would every Miss America contestant since the conception of beauty pageants say her greatest wish is for world peace?
Now, back to the question at hand: Where do we go when we die? More specifically, where did my dad go when he died? I'm pretty sure that at this point in my life that my mind should be awarded the heavyweight championship belt for wrestling the issue of the afterlife, although that analogy is not completely sound, because I have yet to actually pin the opponent. Perhaps a participation ribbon is in order; I'll stick it in the crate of other "thanks for trying" awards I've gotten in life. I feel that my degree from Drury University carries with it a certain consolation ribbon as well. No matter, I digress. Where did Dad go? At this time, my paradigm doesn't allow for Dad to go anywhere. If heaven is an ideal and not a place, then my Dad disappeared in the crematorium.
He lives in the goosebumps on my arms. He lives in the hairs on the back of my neck, standing alert at the slightest mention of his name. He lives in the tight pains in my chest when someone unknowingly asks me "How are your parents doing?" or "What do your mom and dad do?" He lives in my voice when I catch myself saying and thinking things he would say. He lives in my blood when I get angry at our president and get excited about social justice or progressive thought. He lives in my bedroom, in my house, in my car, in my eyes, in my lips, in my lungs, in my music. He is more alive now than I ever cared to notice while he was living in the physical sense. My father won't go away.
I often ponder what my children will be like. I think about how they will never feel so emotionally attached to their grandfather as I, at least not knowingly. But they will know him better than I did. They will know him because I cannot help but become my father's son. Another part of me suspects that I will never have children. I may never settle down long enough to do so, or perhaps I will suffer the same fate as my father and my life will end earlier than anticipated. I shouldn't waste so much time speculating about my future; in a sense, what lies ahead is arbitrary. He was the best man I was fortunate enough to meet. If for no other reason than to prolong his existence, I hope to have the same influence on people in this life. Regardless of one's spiritual or cosmic preference, I offer that the beauty of life after death depends on how we live our life right now. In the most straightforward sense, we seal our own fate in the way we approach others; our influence is strong. What happens when we die? We quit going to work, but we keep working. That's what happens.
posted by nathaniel @ 8:08 AM
3 comments
people have watered Robert Plant