Struggling With Where

I think another reason I am struggling so much to accept the death of my Mother, is that I have no concrete beliefs about what happens to a person's soul after they die.

I would like to believe in Heaven. It would be really awesome to think my Mom is now in a place where she is not tethered to her concentrator like a dog on a leash and where her lungs are not the shrivelled useless things they were in life. I would love to know that she is with her Mother, who also passed away suddenly when Mom was much younger than I am now and had just become a new mother herself.

I have to admit, Utopia is a very alluring concept.

Unfortunately, in order to believe in a literal Heaven I also have to believe in a literal Hell. And I have to believe in God and the Bible and that whole ball of wax because I don't think Christianity is an a la carte ideal.

For reasons far too complicated and convoluted to go into right now, I just can't do that, as much as I would like to. And I would like to. I've said it before....I am deeply envious of those who have the solace of a convicted heart. I think this whole thing would be a lot easier if I just believed....something.

I believe this: She has not simply ceased to be. Her soul, her essense, her life force...whatever you want to call it...still exists somewhere. I believe it is simply too powerful and too indomitable to be snuffed out like a candle.

And yet...she is undeniably gone.

I saw her body before it was all fancied up. I had to. I hadn't seen her for nearly a year and I needed to say good-bye to my Mother; not some made up, plasticized, artificial version of my Mother. So I begged them not to do anything until I got there and could lay eyes upon her one last time.

If you've ever seen a dead body...a real dead body, not a neatly dressed corpse in a casket....then you know that it is quite obvious that what has been left behind is nothing more than cold dead flesh. It is quite clearly an empty vessel.

It horrified me because it was my Mother but not my Mother.

I stroked the same brow that used to wrinkle with consternation when I had been naughty. I held the same hand that used to feel my forehead for fevers and wrap my hair around prickly curlers. But it was utterly lifeless. It didn't squeeze back, it didn't brush away the tears that fell upon it, it didn't tremble and hum with the force of her inside it. My Mother was one of those people who filled a room with her presence, almost as if her body couldn't contain the brilliance of her spirit.

But the room in which she lay was utterly empty and still. No presence. No vibrance. No life.

So she is gone. I know that.

But where is she??? A soul as bouyant and bright as my Mother's has to be somewhere.

Here's what I would very much like to believe...

My mother has been born anew and is now just a tiny baby, suckling at her Mother's soft, warm breast. She is no longer an aging orphan with diseased lungs but a cherished infant with lungs that are pink and clean and fresh once more. And she will go on to live another amazing life and do even more amazing things.

She won't remember me, but that's okay because I remember her.

Live well Mom. I hope we meet again someday. I like to think that something in me will know you and something in you will know me.

Maybe we will even be lucky enough to love one another again.

Afterthought: What if her new Mother is her old one? What if...once we cross paths, our destinies are inextricably linked and we go on loving each other until the end of time? That means we don't lose each other, we just get seperated by time once in a while. I like that. It comforts me. And right now, I take comfort where I can.