Death. Not a word many people like to hear or think about. The end of a life. The blackness, the emptiness, the loneliness. The indescribable void left by loss. Feelings swelling and crashing like waves on the shore during the cold winter months. Thoughts unravel, as they take a trip down memory lane or into an aborted future.
It’s hard to stay still. To remain in the neutrality of the present moment. The mind has to think. What if… If only… Maybe… The famous stages of grief make their entrance either one at a time or all at once like they’re crashing the party.
Numbness sounds like the right answer until it makes sense to curl into the fetal position and cry until there are no tears left to shed. Then relief comes and it feels like a ray of sunshine has finally decided to peek through the clouds. Acceptance? Not yet. Another round of tears claim their encore. More of them without an applause. More of them until they eventually subside and leave the stage.
And then there’s silence. That heavy and impenetrable silence. The body is tired but the mind is lost, swallowed by emptiness, sinking down a black hole.
Why? Why ME? One thought dares to ask. Why now? Trying to crack the riddle, thoughts storm in and cause a ruckus so loud, it can only end with a scream.
A scream no one can hear. A visceral primal howl that explodes in the gut and twists it in knots. And pain stabs like a blade, plunging straight through the heart, relentlessly cutting, hashing, disintegrating anything left to eradicate. Leaving only ashes behind.
Death.
Although I’m still alive and breathing, I may as well be dead. Because the pain, that kind of pain, hurts too much. How am I going to make it out unscathed? I won’t. It’s the kind of experience that changes you. It’s the kind that makes you contemplate your life purpose, and all your past decisions.
If I could only change the past and make it all better. What deal would I have to sign so that my unborn baby would still be alive?
Unfortunately in cases like these, death is not personal. Mother Nature follows a plan and if even a single glitch appears, the plan gets aborted like a failed mission to Mars.
It’s easy to understand, but hard to comprehend. One minute alive, dead the next. No control whatsoever. No way to resurrect anything. It’s gone. There is no spark left. There maybe never was any spark at all.
People expect you to behave a certain way in the face of loss. They don’t want to see you cry but they find it awkward if you don’t cry at all. You want to tell them that the screaming inside has not stopped but only you can hear it. Deafening. Suffocating.
I feel like I’m drowning yet I’m on solid ground. And despite all that pain, there is also deliverance. There is freedom. Wherever that little soul went, it is not bound by human laws. It is not bound by endless suffering. It is there, invisible, but it existed. It lived and died.
I don’t believe in eternal life but I do believe in reincarnation. Wherever that soul went, it will find its home.
In the meantime, the scream will slowly fade away. Life always follows death. Sunshine always comes after a rainstorm. I’m not sure yet about rainbows. It’s too soon to tell.
The Manicheans 