Taboo Speak

In preference to what I am posting my niece lost her husband suddenly this past week. and it has devastated her and the family. It saddens me more to watch her to have to go through this and knowing that there isn't anything anyone can say or do to lesson the heartbreak. It just sucks no matter which way you turn this. Being a writer I usually can on the dime whip up something to match an occasion even if I have not experienced it, tapping into someone's spirit but due to the heaviness of it all I had problems trying to capture my side. It took me a lot of tries and do overs but here it is. Sorry for it being long winded, I had a lot to say.

It’s hard for me sometimes to grasp which side of the road of life and death I firmly stand in. I have my beliefs, my feelings, how I want life after death to be like. I think most people, especially those that don’t believe in a god or those not in touch or in line with their spiritual side, think that nothing happens, you just sleep forever. I guess that would relieve any stress of going through any judgment and being either dispensed to a torturous environment or an overly polite and perfect forever. There are people who have settled into their own version of what prefect is and the book version of Heaven might not seem like a good idea but neither is Hell so the forever sleep of nothingness works best for them.

  From my own gatherings of readings both in the Holy Bible and articles and documentaries about people dying and coming back to life, it all comes down to revering your life as a gift not a right and that we are all here for a reason, a purpose. For a long time even though through some dark areas of my own life, have believed that people and events both good and bad, enter and exit for a reason. Sometimes we get answers right away but mostly we get them later on when we are not so desperate or severely broken. Wisdom and truth are often heard when we are quiet or busy, distracted with something else.

  Right now I can speak somewhat objectively because I have not lost someone that I have invested my whole self in. There are a couple of people who I am really close with that are still alive and I imagine that in their time of passing I will not be so objective or casual. I have pretty much kept myself aloof trying to not pour my whole self into any one person, fearing I would attach my center, my purpose on them and lose focus of the big picture. I was also to be truthful afraid that I would get too comfortable, too reliant and in the event of losing them to something as forever as death that I would break into a million pieces and not be able to function again. I’m not sure if all of that stems from me losing my mom at a very early age and not understanding until much much later.

    For a majority of people when we lose a loved one that we are entwined with we automatically envision them floating around up in Heaven re-uniting with loved ones past and pretty much continuing up in Heaven as they did here minus all the sickness and road blocks. I guess that raises another question. Do we all end up there regardless? Even die hard Christians will blur the lines to make a death more acceptable. For those who leave on their idealistic glasses the possibility of re-connecting with loved ones one day gives us the push, the drive to carry on during our own journey until we pass. Since I don’t belong to the sector of people who just think we sleep in darkness forever, I can’t wrap my mind around that, can’t even offer a plausible theory.

  Life on its own presents challenges and goals and that goes double for love but we are never promised a set number of days here on earth in our flesh vessels. Once you marry someone that is not a certified certificate that you and that person will die in each others arms, romantically, idealistically that what we all want. Even the devoted bible thumper when faced with a sudden death of a spouse or child will often step back from their faith and question everything.

The hardest part of life has been and will always be death. Death has been a taboo subject to pull up during the midst of living until a loved one passes then it’s brought up but even then it’s discussed with wincing facial expressions and fear or worse quickly swept under the rug because it’s just too morbid or depressing. The death of a loved one is less about how and where their soul will end up and more about living without that person. Even if you logically know that “No one here gets out alive”   when someone you have attached your spirit to dies, part of you dies too.

Everyone mourns in their own way, it’s a process, a passage. Some people get to a plateau where they can understand that even though their loved one is no longer here that their spirit and legacy will live on. I don’t believe that once a soul ascends to where ever they go for their next journey that they can interact with us but they can with the help of angels pass along signs and messages that a distraught left to carry on person might need to hear or embrace.

   In conclusion, like I stated earlier I haven’t lost someone that I have attached my spirit to yet that will leave me devastated. Right now, even though I am a deeply spiritual person, I wonder if I will be able to lean into all of what I believe that keeps me somewhat balanced when someone that I hold dear passes. It is so much easier to divvy out advice and support when you are not directly involved. Until it happens to you, when you are suddenly put in that position and nobody with breath in their lungs is exempt, you will never fully understand.