Death

September 2, 2018

Like most people on this earth, I have an uneasy relationship with death. I do not know what to believe about it.

Should I listen to scientists and naysayers and think that after death there is nothing? That the body is all there is? That once that body stops working, it is over and done with?

Either the heart or the brain stops, and that’s that. That I am no better than a machine that works while it works, then gets discarded, and then rots in dumps.

If there is nothing after my body stops functioning, why should I strive to live a decent life? I can do whatever I want, and it does not matter. I can use people for my own good. I can cheat. I can lie. I can hurt others.

I do not need morality. I only need to know the laws and if I can get away with what I do, it is all good. For that matter, I can kill and if I am smart enough, there will be no consequences that I will have to bear.

There is no right and there is no wrong in this life. Only laws that we must follow.

Then why am I burdened with a conscience?

If there is nothing after the body is done with, why should I be afraid of death? I am rational. If there is nothing, then there is nothing to fear. So why is that fear present?

If the body is all there is, why do we have in our language the word “soul”, and “spirit”? We have names for all the different body parts, and then we have the “soul”. Merriam-Webster defines this word as: “the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life”.

The first funeral I ever went to was my grandfather’s. I was a child then. The casket was open. We, the kids, could go see him, if we wanted to say our goodbyes. I went.

I loved my grandfather. I remember feeling confusion. That body in the casket was not my grandfather. It did not even really look like him. It was nothing, nothing at all. It could have been any type of matter decaying in that box. My grandfather was not there. He was gone. Where did “he” go?

That funeral was my first.

Since then, I went to other funerals. If I got the chance, if the casket was open, I would go and look.

Every time, I had the same experience. What made that person, who that person was could not be sensed. It wasn’t there. The body was laying there, and the body was empty. The life, the soul, the essence was missing.

Could it be that the soul is to a body what the driver is to a car?

The notion of nothing after death is recent. Before scientists became gods, humans believed in an afterlife. It went beyond belief. They “knew” there was something after.

Death and life used to be discussed with family members and friends. The death of an aging or sick parent was a family affair. The event was happening at home. All concerned were preparing for the passing.

Today, there is no “knowing”, only questions.

We die in hospitals. No one is ready for it. We hook our loved ones to machines that keep the body going even though the body can no longer go on. We fight death at all cost.  We fight insurance companies for more time, and more time.

When did that change occur?

When did death become a very lucrative business instead of a natural part of life?

By removing death from our homes, did we remove as well the knowledge of who we truly may be?

How strange that the certainty of a soul within the body is now a question of beliefs and religions.

Katrin L.