Thinking about mortality, with religion telling you that there will be winners and losers in the afterlife, is really kind of off-putting. And I was told about hell from such a young age. A lake of burning fire awaits those who don’t personally accept Jesus Christ into their lives as their personal savior. And you know what burns most in hell it is the part you sin with. (Open pant’s fly and fan widely at this point).
At the end of high school I was so afraid of death and the chance that my parents would die unexpectedly that I became kind of dysfunctional. Okay the wake and bake regimen might have played a part but I mean I would be lying awake at night thinking, “There is no fucking way out of this. I AM GOING TO DIE!!!!” I would be sweating widely if I was sober.
When I was 17 one of my childhood friends died at his own hand. It wasn’t what started this focus but it was kindling that stoked the fire. He left this world at 17 without experiencing much of anything. WTF?
I remember asking my father if he believed in what that taught at church. He didn’t give me what you would call a straight answer. He told me that there was a great deal of good that you would learn in listening to Sunday sermons. He told me it was important to be in that pew. What he said next was curious. I can’t remember the exact phrase but the crux was that did he believe everything was exactly the way they said it was well to that the answer was no.
What I did to address my fear was I thought very proactive. My first term at university I took a course in metaphysics and epistemology. I knew I was in the right place when one of the varied text books was entitled “Writings on Death and Dying”. Professor Wilkinson who had some form of palsy and who wore a beret would smoke as he lectured. With his good hand he would make notes about the Greeks and Heidegger and each eighty minute session would spin off into the kind of thing Pinto did looking at his fingernail in Animal House.
The hours surrounded by my peers talking about life and knowledge and meaning really helped. It calmed me. In a way it was like attending a tent meeting. What do I mean by that? I mean we all had come seeking some answers and the fact that we all had those questions was in a way a comforting answer in itself.
In the end I came to a conclusion. Because death was a universal something none of us escapes we must therefore approach it just like so many things we have no choice about and we must face subject to grudging acceptance. It was something that by heredity we were bound to like each one of forebears. I put the fear away into a box for a long, long time.
At 56 I am at a point of considering outcomes as opposed to future possibilities. The box I put away that philosophy class is still sitting on my shelf. It looms larger now than it did at 30, 40 and even 50. While the concept of hell still bothers me the question of meaning bothers me more.
In a universe that is billions upon billions of years old and comprised of billions and billions of stars and planets and even more dark matter that we can’t even measure right what has it all meant for me, for any of us. I think I have to come back to Iris to explain it all to me and send me off to bed tonight.
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