I've been contemplating this question frequently as a result of a local tragedy. I've lived in large cities for the past 11 years and felt pretty anonymous, not knowing hardly anyones outside of my small group of acquaintances. However, now my community is a whole 20,000 people and Mike's and my jobs lend themselves to get to know lots of people.
A few weeks ago, Mike was looking at the news online and found a story about a car accident that happened that day just west of town in which 2 people died and 2 others were injured, one critically. The next day the headline story in the paper identified those who had died as the 60 year old mother and 6 year old son of our real estate agent. Reading that took my breath away and made my heart drop. I can't imagine having that happen, losing 2 people so central to your life in the same instant. I mean, you hear about those sorts of accidents happening in which whole families or parts of families are killed in the same accident. But I've never known those affected by such a tragedy. The week after it happened, it felt there was this pall over the town, this overriding sadness. The family is well known - the woman who died is a counselor working with the alcohol recovery community and director of one of the local tribal counseling centers, the one who lost the mother and son is a real estate agent and is running for city counsel and her husband is a police officer. Their children come to our clinic. I would see her walking the 6 year old to school as I walked to work, see them riding their bikes in the neighborhood.
All spiritual traditions have their own take on what happens after we die - whether we are judged and sorted accordingly, whether we rejoin the collection of souls, whether we are reborn to continue our journey to enlightenment, whether the end of our living body is the end forever. I was raised Catholic but don't really follow that tradition anymore, and I don't believe in hell. Nor do I believe in the end when our body dies. Can we have contact with those that have died? Can we make some connection with the soul that lives on?
I've known plenty of people who have died, but I'm not sure why this tragedy has started me on these thoughts. Perhaps it is thoughts of this grieving mother who has lost her 6 year old son. Was this car accident meant to be the end of his life? Was there some purpose in this? Was he never meant to reach adult-hood? Perhaps there is something about having a person in your life for only 6 years, but during that time see this being develop a personality, a strong sense of compassion, to be so full of life and for that to be gone in an instant of an inexplicable accident.
At the memorial, they spoke about how the little boy is moving on to new adventures. And, somehow, I find that helpful. It is a way of framing how his life isn't over, he's just moving on to different things somewhere else. We never know when the end will come for anyone that we love, or, for that matter, when our own time will come. I hope I could say that I've internalized all of the possible lessons from this, but I find myself still human. Getting into petty squabbles, worrying about things that don't matter, spending time doing things that I don't love, not telling those important to me that I love and appreciate them as much as I should. But at least I've been more aware of these things, these thoughts. And I've allowed my heart to be open even if it is painful.
The question will remain unanswerable.
No comments:
Post a Comment