death

I know my days are numbered.  I always knew they were numbered. Looking at the obits daily, I notice that the ones listed are around my age, some older; some younger.  Each day I wake up grateful that I am granted the gift of one more day on this planet.  But death looms large around me. If I’m lucky I have fifteen more years.   I think about my last fifteen years. I was sixty-four fifteen years ago.  I sang the Beatles song happily. It seems like yesterday. How quickly those fifteen years flew by. How do I slow down the passage of time? How do I savor each moment more than I do already?  What IS death like?

 

My Chinese grandmother told me when one dies, one returns reincarnated as another being.  Would I like the new me? Would I remember who I was? Would I be able to mate with my beloved husband who died a while back or my present husband who will follow me?  I don’t want to return as an ant, they work too hard and don’t have fun.  A dancing water bug would be thrilling, gliding on the clear surface, sticking my tongue out at the fishes below.  A tick could ride around various animals, get marvelously fat and no one would care!  Maybe an oryx.  Would I have a choice?

 

My faith tells me I may go to heaven if I’ve behaved. And if I’m in heaven, what about the sickeningly- sweet –goody- two –shoes- fake- smiling folks, are they there?  Will God send me to Hell just thinking about not wanting to be in their company? I haven’t been altogether good. What is Hell like?  Might some of my mischievous friends be there?  I want to know, I need to know …  How could anything be as wonderful as what we are enjoying now??  The wind, the scent of spring blossoms, walking hand in hand with your lover, eating lobster tail saturated in clarified butter; singing folk songs with your children accompanied by their guitar and banjo; making love early in the morning! That’s heaven.  That’s heaven.  The afterlife, that is the unknown and terrifying because nothing can be this good.