You know, one of my major regrets as an atheist is the fact that I take absolutely no solace in the notion of an afterlife whatsoever. Because really, sometimes it would be nice to fall into a comforting idea of a cliche-ridden, cloud-filled heaven with angels playing harps and invisible choirs singing and a bearded elderly God sitting somewhere on a throne watching the whole thing benignly. Or, alternatively, my personal idea of heaven, which is basically, me, a beach, and an army of Aussiebum models for all of forever.
But you see, because I reject the fairy tale answers religion presents to these things, to me, death is nothing but an ending. Oblivion. You cease to exist. Which some people find kind of depressing, but personally, I find oddly comforting at times. Honestly, the idea of “eternity”, in ANY capacity, pretty much freaks me out, so the thought of just... not being, anymore, brings with it a sense of completion that I tend to embrace.
This is fine ninety eight percent of the time. Which of course, brings us to the other two percent. Last week, my family lost another member. My Aunt, Judith. Just fifty years old. Wife. Mother to three. Friend. Aunt. All round loved person (Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing I hate more than canonising the dead. She COULD be a right pain in the ass, and you’ve NEVER met anyone as anal retentive as this woman) And when you think of someone in such human terms, it becomes progressively more difficult to accept that this person who EXISTED, whom you knew, and shared life with, just... isn’t, anymore. It’s death, and it’s impersonal, and it sucks.
I consider myself a rational, sensible person (most of the time) but looking at my cousin this afternoon, I hated not only myself, but the world in general, because there was NOTHING I could say to comfort him. He’s lost his mother. At the age of thirteen. How on earth do you even begin to understand what that kid has to go through? And what platitudes are there, when the nicest thing you can think to say is that at least his mum isn’t in pain anymore?
Sometimes the reality of life makes me sick.
3 comments:
I'm sorry to hear about your aunt.
I'm not an atheist, but I have wrestled with my Catholic faith and our beliefs about the afterlife. Then again, the concept of death is so daunting, I can't blame people for subscribing to a fairy tale like afterlife just so they don't feel the need to worry themselves sick over it. It is a hard thing to wrap our heads around, but I just hope that afterlife or no, there is some "better place" the human soul ends up.
Your aunt was so lovely when we were down in Melbourne. I feel so bad for your cousin. 13. Seriously. The worse thing I went through at 13 was trying to figure out what to wear on mufty days. Poor kid. You're a good cousin though.
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