So my reply to Ace has become a blog post all of its own. Because the thing about it is this, any discussion of the afterlife is preposterous. I have little patience with the kind of atheists who just ridicule the religious, but when it comes to this subject I sort of think that they have a point. We make this stuff up to make ourselves feel better.
So what? If you have not experienced it first hand, let me assure you that losing someone to death sucks rocks. It can make a person a little bit crazy, and not in a fun Prince song kind of way. More of a disorienting Nick Drake sort of way. Then it might seem like you could just spontaneously combust at any moment. That’s no way to walk around, fixing to explode. So we make stuff up.
Which is no great surprise considering we just decide things like that you drive on the right side of the line. Except in England where they drive on the wrong side of the line. They also probably think that Catholics go to heaven. Which we all know is just fine. Whatever, right, because we are just making this stuff up anyway. So I feel better that there is something past this world and that the people who have died are there.
What I think “there” is kind of depends on who I am thinking about at the time. Maybe my grandfather has a garden and just putters around in it all the time. Mama and her kin are totally hanging out in Brigadoon, or up on Monteagle, or wherever, sitting on the porch talking. Talking. Talking. I never understood how they could talk so much. Now I can’t shut up. I talk to them sometimes. They’re there. And even if they are not, I don’t really give a shit because it works for me.