Life After Death II
I wrote about life after death last night. As I finished the post, I saw a window on my screen flashing. I had a facebook chat message from a girl I know. She told me she was drunk. Up until this last week, she had over 3 years of sobriety. She wanted to know if I knew of any AA meetings she could go to right then. It was 1:30am and there weren’t any that I knew of. I told her that I would come over. She agreed to that after I assured her I wouldn’t make her pour out the remaining booze. I said I wouldn’t want her to waste it. So I went over and we talked. We laughed a lot. We cried, too. After 3 hours, she finished off the booze and said she was ready to sleep.
On my drive home I thought about how I had just finished pondering life after death and then faced death on earth. It’s easy to forget about the people who are dying right next to us. The people who aren’t physically ill, whose pain isn’t obvious. It’s easy because they usually hide their pain so well. I’ve been one of those people. I have been nearly dead on the inside and no one knew, which is why it’s weird that it always shocks me when I see it. I see a lot of it. But it never fails to jar me. When I hear someone say that death would be a relief from the unrelenting ache inside, it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart partly because I know that, if they choose to face it, they won’t feel that way forever. And partly because it reminds me where I come from. It reminds me of the emptiness, the hopelessness. It reminds me of a time when I thought death was far more appealing than life. And when I attempted death. As far removed as I am from it now, I still understand it. For some people, life after death, even if there is no life after death, seems much easier and far more peaceful, than life on earth.
