Death.
Deleted.
Cease to exist.
Become nothing.
Exterminated.
Go nowhere.
Black.
Empty.
Hollow.
Gone.
Death was so much easier when I believed in god. I just needed to accept Jesus into my heart as my lord and savior…. Be a good person… help others and eventually, when I die, I’ll go to heaven. Easy as that, life goes on after death.
Damn appealing, right? When things sounds too good to be true, they usually are.
Don’t get me wrong, I want to believe in god. Desperately. Truly.
I want to believe in heaven, whole-heartedly.
I hate (and struggle with) the idea of only existing in memories.
Because memories fade.
Information is distorted.
Lost in translation.
Gone.
Why don’t I believe? I have no proof.
I cannot just believe in something because I want to ease my stress and suffering in life.
I cannot just believe in something because it would alleviate my fears of the unknown.
The unknown.
That’s the thing about death. By the time you know anything, it is already too late.
I’ve been lucky most of my life when it comes to dealing with death:
I lost my Nana when I was seven. At that age, I didn’t understand the concept of death. I lost my Grandpop when I was almost 13. He lived across the country. What bothered me more than anything was my father’s refusal of me going back to see him and say goodbye before he passed (we knew he was sick). I lost two friends/acquaintances a few years back, but we were never close and it never really sunk in that they were gone, just that we didn’t talk anymore. A few years back, apparently my Aunt Karen died to something alcohol related. I hadn’t seen her in almost 30 years and never talked to her in all of those years so there was zero emotion attached to her death. Don’t get me wrong, the deaths meant something to me, I just felt nothing.
I have spent years mastering the art of shoving my feelings back down my throat instead of facing reality and actually dealing with my emotions.
How do you reverse 20+ years of habits? Great question. Nope, I don’t know the answer yet.
My fear is that if I let even one emotion in, it’s going to first overwhelm me, and then consume me. I don’t want to live with this kind of fear, but damn, that is scary.
I’ve been told that everyone processes grief differently. I don’ t know what my process is yet, so for now, I’m just going to write. My words may be aimless for a time. I don’t know how this works, so I’m just going to dive right in.
* deep breath *
Yeah… I don’t know if I can do this.
She Thinks 