Evan Craig

What is death?

What happens when we die?

 

You’ll have to forgive me for being in a rather existential mood at the time of writing this. These two questions were posed to fifty Australians who had to write a letter in response. This exercise was called the Death Letter Project, deemed a healthy forum on how to normalize the conversation around death along with lessening the fear which surrounds the unknowns of dying.

 

All backgrounds were welcome in this project and the writers’ professions ranged from funeral directors and embalmers to veterinarians and jewellery designers. I was struck by the varying theories in the letters I read. For example, Geshe Ngawang Samten, a Buddhist teacher, wrote about his belief in rebirth noting, “We can be reborn into animal realms, or again into the human realm, and so forth. Although our form changes from the body of a human to the body of an animal, the mind still remains. The subtlest level of the mind travels from life to life. It can’t become non-existent.” In another, Benjamin Gilmour, a paramedic, spoke on death being inescapable in his profession, writing, “Death seems to take us unawares . . . Guess that is what us paramedics are there for, to help delay death a little so our patients can do what they’ve been putting off for a lifetime.”

 

A letter which left the strongest impression on me was written by a woman named Ellen Merer. She fearlessly ended her letter with: “I’m not afraid of death. I’m ready. I think it’s a mystery and all shall be revealed. Some people waste their lives fearing death.” Her words made me wonder how much of my own life I had already wasted fearing the inevitable.

 

For most of my life, death has taken up permanent residence inside my brain. I’ve always been unable to get the thoughts to move out. They operated much like a Hydra. Every time I thought I had severed its vicious, serpent-like head, two more grew in its place, and engulfed me with its poisonous breath.

 

I’m not sure where these thoughts originated. I believe they could be pinpointed to my private Christian school that I attended from kindergarten to second grade. About once a week, we had chapel. One of the pastors leading it always felt the need to bring up that we were all gonna die someday and would have us pray to “save” ourselves. It was never clear to me what exactly the rules on “saving” were. I was always told that once was enough to get into Heaven, but this pastor would try to save the same kids every week. Did he really have us all out to be heathens?

 

Regardless, I wanted to do whatever was possible to get into Heaven. I wanted to see the golden-bricked roads and sunlight 24-hours a day as I was promised in Sunday school. Most of all, I had imagined Jesus could set a mean buffet table. There was nothing I sought after more than the concept of Heaven. Eventually, I came to the realization that this would all last FOREVER, which is a really long time if you weren’t already aware.

 

These worries about Heaven had flooded my mind like a hurricane pounding a coastal community with tidal waves. How could I take a nap with all the sunlight seeping through the windows of my heavenly ranch house? What if my next-door neighbors were insufferable? Dear God, I would have to live next to them FOREVER. These existential contemplations persisted. I had interrogated myself to ponder whether I truly wanted to live eternally ever after. After a while, Heaven seemed a lot more like Hell to me.

 

Eventually, my faith in Heaven and Christianity felt like a teenager learning the cold hard truth about the existence of Santa Claus. I had never considered myself deeply religious but I enjoyed believing in something greater than my life on Earth. Soon enough, my brain had talked itself out of the possibility of an afterlife. This doubt sunk in more following the death of my grandma, who I was quite close with. Here I was, pouring out all my faith and emotion to a higher power who didn’t appear to care about me or my family. It was time to realize that there was no higher power at all, much like there wasn’t a jolly, rosy-cheeked man sliding down all the chimneys to raid the world’s cookie supply. There was nothing, and I had never felt so abandoned in my life.

 

All I’ve ever wanted was a definitive answer on death. I don’t want to hear anymore religious mumbo jumbo on what happens after death, much like I don’t care to know a Redditor’s opinion on the afterlife. I just wish there was a big book full of answers to every question about the universe to tell me. Google is close to being all-knowing but not exactly what I’m looking for. Dying shouldn’t be this big surprise when we experience it. Death isn’t a big-budget summer blockbuster, the ending can be spoiled just this once. I can handle the truth either way, but I just wish I had a straight answer. Whenever this topic comes to mind, I always think back to an old Calvin and Hobbes comic. Calvin poses similar musings to his tiger Hobbes and ends the strip’s final panel by adding, “But if I’m not going to be eternally rewarded for my behavior, I’d sure like to know now.”

 

The thing is, I can sit here for the rest of my life and ask whether I deserve to be eternally rewarded, but that way lies madness. It’s unfair to drain all my energy onto something I’ll never have control over. I need to focus on the inevanable instead of the inevitable. I’m just afraid of murdering even more of my happiness rather than living my life to the fullest. Maybe I’m mortified of becoming just like my grandpa who lived until he was ninety-eight years old. Around age ninety, he was worried about his cholesterol getting too high, and altered his diet accordingly. Should I ever be fortunate enough to live that long, I plan to eat, drink and smoke whatever my heart desires. Unfortunately, my diet consisting of pizza, cheeseburgers, and ice cream might prevent that from happening but I think that’ll be a conversation for another time though.

 

I don’t want this fear of the reaper to consume me to the point that living my life becomes an unbearable chore. Seasons don’t fear the reaper, nor do the wind, the sun or the rain, so why should I? This gets me into answering the first question asked of the participants: what is death? Again, my apologies for getting so existential, but death is only natural. It’s not my fault our culture deems the subject matter taboo.

 

Yet, so many other cultures openly embrace death with open arms. Mexico has Day of the Dead which has grown into numerous colorful festivities celebrating life and death. They have a variety of flowers to attract souls of the deceased and sugar skulls used as offerings that are placed on altars. Bottles of tequila are even placed on graves of the adults. Although, anyone reading this might need something stronger than tequila to wash down this existential discussion. Instead of running from death, Mexican culture embraces it. So what exactly are we so afraid of?

 

As the saying goes, death is only part of living. I have always found that statement to be an oxymoron. Death is the absence of living, but it’s a part of it? How in the world does that make any sense? I eventually concluded that death makes us appreciate the moments with our friends and family that much more. In a way, death is so beautifully destructive in it’s message as it sometimes takes a sudden passing to make us regret taking life’s fragility for granted. We often don’t know a good thing until it’s gone forever.

 

Now to answer the second question as to what happens after we die. Personally, I don’t care to know anymore. I only care about putting the “fun” back into “funeral” so I can go out on a high note. Funny how my after-death plans might be the only thing I’ll ever have control over while I’m alive. Unless cryogenically freezing myself becomes an option, and let’s face it, no one would ever thaw me out, these are my final wishes. I want a New Orleans-style funeral, complete with jazz renditions of hits by Electric Light Orchestra as I make my ascent back up to Mr. Blue Sky before I Turn to Stone. In terms of coffin travel, I want dancing pallbearers which would provide quite the spectacle as long as they don’t drop me. Not that it would wake me up from my beauty rest or anything.

 

As for the service, I want it in the style of a giant roast session. It’s not like I’ll be so offended that I’ll never speak to anyone ever again. Everyone must be suited up in a Packers jersey complete with my name on the back. It would be in my will so attending Bears fans can’t bear down on my final wishes. Finally, for the reception, I want a buffet line complete with a chicken wing stand and of course, a chocolate fountain. To my readers asking themselves why I’m talking about this, I’m doing my best to embrace the brutality of death. I’m so tired of running. Plus we’ll never get out of this life alive if we take ourselves so seriously all the darn time.

 

I’ll always momentarily think about death as I grow older and hopefully wiser. I refuse to sacrifice my mental health to it any longer. Pondering what death is and what comes after will always be on the minds of every human being until the end of time. It’s not worth wasting whatever precious time I have left worrying. The second I do, there’s one foot in the grave waiting patiently for my arrival. So, I reckon I better get busy living or get busy dying.