What happens when people die?
Everything. And nothing. And we just don't really know. Exploring the possibility in death.
My grandmother died on Wednesday last week. I am pretty sure everyone else on the planet has had someone close to them pass. (I hate the term pass. I hate the term die. How does “let go” sound to you?) I didn’t. My Grandma is my first. My only.
I am of two mindsets about writing on this topic. 1. No one wants to hear about it, thus I should not share it. 2. Everyone has lost someone they love, perhaps you have lost someone recently? Did you find yourself evaluating what happens to humans when they are no longer animated like they were? I should write about it. I am thinking about it. It is all I am thinking about.
Are you in a community where people have answers? Like, you talk about these things, and everyone is in agreement on what happens before and the afterlife? If so, I am jealous. I don’t have that. I am part of the NONEs who are uncommitted to concrete ways of understanding the world beyond our senses. We are bendable, adaptable, and uncertain. Making definitive statements about things that are out of our perception seems like a tricky thing, and yet, here I am longing for it.
I am also very fearful of assuming people have the same beliefs as I do. Time and time again when I ask people things, answers differ. And yet, I still overestimate that other people share the same worldview I do. I think this bias is called the false consensus effect. I assume everyone agrees with me about what happens when people die. I also assume that I am probably wrong.
THE CONTEXT: Last week, my mother called and said my grandmother had a fall. They were taking her to the ER. This had happened before. I falsely assumed it would happen again.
After she passed last Wednesday, we all gathered in my grandparent’s home Friday night. All the people she cared about most who were still living were there, it was a small group. My grandfather, still in shock, asked rhythmically who had died as if he were living in a reality like a bittersweet love song that needed to be played on repeat. Each time reliving his worst fear. The moment she left, he was there, holding her hand. Everyone was there. My sister and I were on a plane, coming there.*
*The “there” I am referring to is the hospital room. I am uncertain of the there where she went. Or did she never leave? My sister and I were in the sky. A possible place, a second there where she could have been. And she was, in the literal way that she was actively on our minds. In the people’s minds that were on the ground, in our minds in the sky, resting in my daughter’s cells in California. There are so many theres one can be in a moment. I am interested in that there. I want to go there. Be with her, there.
The day after, this man, my grandfather who had been with the same woman, for 70 years, suddenly was alone. Wherever there was, he was ostensibly not there. All he could do was ask, “Who died?” Every time someone answered he cried. As if he was hearing the news for the first time. On the second day, he wanted to know where the body was. Where her, his love’s, his companion’s, body was. He wanted to make sure it was going to the right place. Next to her mother, at Fort Snelling, that was where. I said my uncle was taking care of it. We circled the topic again every 30 minutes or so.
During the middle of the circuit was when he talked about my grandmother’s current spiritual location, with her mother and father. She was enjoying herself where she was. The actual location is unknown, but it was a nice place. Surrounded by all the people she longed to be with during her lifetime. This thought seemed to comfort him. That she was safe. Was that location in the nerve fabric of his mind? It is soft there.
What does it mean to be safe? To feel safe? Is the only time that we really are safe after we die? We are no longer aware of the construct of harm. We can rest comfortably, without the pain and suffering of the world. How can people really feel free and safe when others are suffering?
I was not hoping to tear holes in my grandfather’s comfort, how he was envisioning the current state of my grandmother’s being, but his thoughts didn’t offer me the same comfort. There were too many unknowns. How did she know where to go? What did she look like, since her body was still here? Is this a literal place? Did my grandfather want to meet her there? Was everyone all in the same spot? What were they having for dinner? My grandfather is a worrier, what if he got lost on the way to find her, there?
In the here, our somewhat shared reality, at family dinners, celebrations, and gatherings of most sorts, we didn’t talk about the specifics of topics like this. After intense wedding ceremonies, we didn’t discuss the implications of the commitments made, or what the words actually meant. We just ate and asked about the reality of what was going on with each other. What was going on at work? Who were they dating? Did they like the food? That sort of thing. However, I longed to know. After the wedding, did they really think their souls existed somewhere else, in some more form, and had that form doubled in size? Like the Grinch whose heart grows too big too fast? He is transformed. We shape shift in ways that are beyond our perception all the time.
Back at the event held for her, I looked at my watch. Stupid Apple watch. I didn’t want the night to end. I wanted her to be there in here. I knew in my heart that this would be the last time we would all be together.
We talked about how she told us all over and over how this was her best life, with her best people. That out of all her lives, this location, these incarnations were her favorite. She believed in past lives. The logistics of how this would work were never discussed. My mother also believes in past lives. I get hung up on the specifics. But I want to. It’s just not my truth.
I am taking comfort in her in me. I have to go on for her. I have to go on for my daughter. I have to go on for you. The literal there, for me at this moment, is somehow in my cells. In the twists and spaces in my DNA. In the rare genetic mutation that she and I and Margaret (my daughter) share. That living forever is both in the memories of people who loved you, but also in the literal sense that all her decisions and all her experiences somehow have played a part in the genetic fabric of all future generations. Like humans are one big organism whose boundaries are porous. And all of her pain, and all of her joy, somehow is embedded in the here. She is still here, in me. And she will be here long after I am gone.
That night, after the celebration of her life, when my grandfather said he was tired and wanted to sleep, we got into the car to drive him to his new home. He looked out at the moon and said he saw her. And I did too, resting comfortably.
What is the story you’re telling yourself when life ends for comfort?
Later this week, I’m incredibly excited to be speaking with Elise Loehnen on her new book On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good. Elise is a longtime podcast host, magazine editor, media executive, and writer. She also has a substack.
I lost my 19 month old son three weeks ago. The wound is too fresh - I don’t have concrete beliefs in what waits beyond death.
I draw some comfort from the idea that my son might be with his great grandparents, my aunt/god mother, my cousin, and my ancestors. That it would be nice if that was a place that was beautiful. But I don’t know.
I see my son in my husband’s face. He lives in my mannerisms and the way I speak - things I taught him, things he taught me. He is in the tears of those that loved him, whether or not they got to meet him.
My grief is constant. He is my grief.
When we're facing death, we need not fear it - if we've lived a kind-hearted or a spiritually minded life.
I was declared dead in 1969, but I saw my impending demise, from the accident, months before it happened.
During the 3 hours that passed just after my death, I floated around for a few hours in an afterlife region and continued to meditate, as I had most of my life. And I silently watched (while floating around on the ceiling) as the surgeons assembled in the operating room and practiced their golf-putting strokes.
Eventually, one of the surgeons said, "Lets patch him up and send him down to the morgue." At that point I knew it was time to return to my (just expired) life. So, I dove down into my lifeless body at the navel and then flashed my entire body (including every cell in my body) with my spiritual essence. Then, I opened my eyes and said to the surgeon right next to me, "Can I watch." I'd never watched surgery before, and I thought this might be fun.
I can still remember the sound of bouncing metal on the floor, as the surgeon next to me dropped all his scalpels and clamps. And then he said, "My God, he's alive." As I smiled at the surgeon next to me, I heard the chief surgeon (who had been teaching the other surgeons how to put) say "Gas him quickly."
Obviously, I survived the accident as well as the surgery; and I eventually returned to my body to continue my mission in this life. I've also faced immediate death a couple of additional times - including another nasty auto accident and a stroke that left me partially paralyzed for a while.
But, more importantly, during thousands of hours of intensive meditation, I've been blessed to be able to enter and abide in the highest regions of heavenly awareness. And, I watched as millions of other souls entered the heavenly regions long after their deaths as well.
In an effort to write an effective response, I took out a calculator to add up how much time I've spent in meditation in this lifetime. I had never cared to add it up before, but it may be pertinent to note that I've spent over 50,000 hours in meditation so far in this lifetime.
But, more importantly, I can tell you from experience that's no reason to fear death - if you lived a tender-hearted, a religious or a spiritual life style.