I think a lot about death not because I’m afraid of it but because I wonder about it. Then someone dear to me passed away recently and that got me thinking about it even more. What it means to live. What it means to die. Or is there any difference between these two things?
I understand death to be a form of existing. A way of being in this universe. We give the word “death” to the phenomenon of losing flesh. Losing of the container. And somehow most of us fear the end of our flesh. “Death” sounds dark and horrible. I sometimes wonder, though, dying might be like casually stepping over a very thin line. I’m on this side and now I’m on the other side, like you are simply and unceremoniously stepping over a line. Just like that. I was alive and now I’m dead and I still am. I also imagine that release from my flesh might be an enormously emancipating thing. I will not be tormented by wants and needs created by flesh and I am not limited and separated by my flesh.
We continue to be in this universe even after we don’t have bodies to reside in. I think quantum physic has already proven that nothing ever cease to exist. Energy that animates our bodies will always be. Our body/container will rejoin the earth and our essence also return to where it came from. From what I read and what I understand and what I feel, that seems just to me.
There was an immediate understanding of the nature of our being when I gave birth to my second child. The way he came into this world and the way he dealt with that trauma was very different from my first born’s. The way he looked at me and the way he was taking in his surroundings told me that he already was an entirely unique and different person. The second he arrived. I remember thinking to myself, oh, my son is already who he is and that means he wasn’t created in my womb. He came from somewhere else to be here.
Not that I want to die but I wonder about what will happen when I die and I sort of expect the transitioning into another state to be a pleasant experience. I don’t look forward to it with eagerness but I don’t fear it, either. I’m mostly just very curious. What I think is that I would probably miss all the activities that require my body. Eating. Drinking. Sleeping. Touching things and people. Listening and playing music. Reading and writing. Warm embrace and passionate exchanges. Smelling flowers and smiling. Laughing so hard that my belly hurts. Being in this container has some downsides but it also has many upsides to it. And although I muse about my bodiless existence, I’m really very happy to be in one when my kids wrap their arms around me.