This post is part of the Remember, O Thou Man Lenten tag started by The Grim Writer. The gist of it? “Write a blog post that somehow boils down to a meditation on one of the four last things–Death, Judgement, Heaven, or Hell.”
When I was a child, I was terrified of death.
Even though I was raised in an Orthodox Christian household (I later left Christianity entirely, wandered around for a while, and then became Catholic four years ago, but anyway. Not important to the story), hell was not really emphasized, so that wasn’t what frightened me.
No, what I found utterly terrifying was the idea of nothingness. I remember being a little kid and imagining what it would be like to just be asleep forever. And to not know about it, because, well, I’d be asleep. The ages would run, and I would rest in something beyond blackness, waiting without knowing I was waiting, for a resolution that would never come.
Even to this day, it gives me a chill to think about it.
I couldn’t really explain how I felt to anyone else. I got the impression most of my friends had avoided giving it very much thought.
I know some people find the traditional Christian view of heaven and hell to be cruel and frightening. And, hey, I understand where that objection comes from, I’ve grappled with it myself. The words “eternal punishment” are not pleasant to think about.
But why is it that we as a society don’t grapple in the same way with the alternative view of death? I had no reason to believe, as a little girl, in “death as nothingness”. But the culture I grew up in made it clear that that is not only A logical and reasonable way to think about how it all ends, but THE way.
I repeat, I find it utterly terrifying. So many seem to see it as this comforting default, this counter to all that Christian stuff, that “when we die, we just die”.
I don’t find it particularly satisfying.
Why does the big noodly clump of neurons in our skulls enable us to think about death at all?
How is this accomplished?
When we die, where does that consciousness go? I can accept that we are dust, and we will return to the earth. I do not find it frightening to think that my body, which has enabled me to take part in so much life, which has borne two children, will one day be consumed by the wriggling creatures of the earth. I love the thought that one day flowers and grass may grow upon my grave.
But I find it impossible to accept that the rest of me is capable of that sort of death. My own experience with life gives me reason to doubt.
There’s an intangible part of me that cannot be turned off just because the neurons in my brain have stopped firing. I do not believe that death can conquer love. And if you had to ask me how I’d describe the human soul, and why I believe we all have one, that’s how I would boil it down, in a simple way. The human soul is the part of us that is capable of love, and loving forever – the part of us that is most precious to our creator.
Those nights seem so long ago, but I remember myself so well. So stubborn and full of big questions I wasn’t smart enough to answer (admittedly, this hasn’t changed).
I would start to spiral, spiral into thoughts of being gone, of being nothing. Panic, almost.Stare into the darkness of my room, thinking about a darkness even blacker than the blackest black. I wish I could talk to my younger self. I wish I could say to her, hey, there’s another way to think about what’s coming for you and all of us, sooner or later.
It doesn’t make you stupid or superstitious to consider it, either.
If your body is fit to become food for trees, your soul is fit for something even greater.
