Reincarnation

September 2, 2018

“I don’t want to die mommy. I really don’t. It sucks. Last time, I died and all I had was gone. I am not happy about that. I worked for all I got, and it took me a lifetime. I had a good husband. I had a big house filled with beautiful things. I had kids, and I had grand kids. I loved it all and I wanted to enjoy it. I was happy. And then, I was dead. I was old, but I thought I had time. I was angry when I died. I was not ready, I wanted more of that life. I am still mad that I had to leave it all behind mommy. Now, I must start it all over again with nothing. It is not like you and daddy have anything, do you?”

These words came from my four years old daughter’s mouth over 25 years ago. When I heard them, I thought I did not understand them. My body covered in goose bumps and my brain went numb. I asked her to repeat what she just said. She did, word for word.

“Look at that car mummy! Look! That purple one! I had one exactly like that! Same color! I loved that car so much! I died in it. I had two little sons back then. I don’t know where they are now…”

That was my son talking. He was a little over three years old.

“I am so tired of all these people treating me like a child! Don’t they know that I used to be an adult? Don’t they remember themselves? I understand that I have a child’s body again now, but they should know better. So annoying how they stop talking when I come into view. And the language they use with me?  Maddening… A little respect would go a long way. And to think, I used to be older than the oldest of them!”

And that came from a little five years old girl at a party my family was invited to. She was sitting in a kid’s chair a little apart from everyone. She was watching the party going on but not participating. She did not seem happy, a light frown on her face. I went to her with a smile, asked her if all was well, was there anything she needed?

I did not grow up believing in reincarnation. Raised mostly catholic, if there was anything after death, it was heaven or hell for all eternity. My daughter’s words shocked me. Where did they come from?

In a world in which quantum physicists tell us that there are parallel worlds coexisting with our own, where studies may indicate that our universe is a holograph, is notion of reincarnation so far-fetched?

What to think of Ian Stevenson’s Twenty Cases Suggestive or Reincarnation or Raymond Moody’s Life After Life?

Could we really be souls on journeys, learning through lives?  Is death but a resting place as religions always told us? Are our bodies the temples our souls occupy during our incarnations?

Katrin L.