Culture + Philosophy

Let’s Talk About Death — Before The Coffin Is Nailed Shut

When was the last time you had a really good talk about death?

Since the death of my father last year, I’ve been thinking about death a lot. Why wouldn’t I? If I’m going to think about it, the death of a parent is as good a time as any.

But it isn’t the first time.

My father died in 2022. My mother died in 1982. A gap of forty years that’s given me plenty of time to think about death.

So What Happens?

Despite having been originally trained as a biologist, I’ve always held the idea that SOMETHING happens to us after we die. I don’t know what it is, but I half-believe we go SOMEWHERE. Call it Heaven, for want of a better word.

As a kid, I was obsessed with Sci-Fi, so this leap of faith to an imaginary place wasn’t too difficult. I could quite easily conjure up all sorts of scenarios. That we were reborn as another organism. Or maybe we didn’t really die, and kept on living in an alternate universe. Or reincarnated as someone else or an animal. Or reborn and life would start again?

It didn’t matter. Something mysterious happened. Something that modern science couldn’t explain or understand. But whatever it was, I believed there was a place where I could see my mother again.

Reality Kicks In

Of course my rational mind thought differently. Even as a child, I was interested in science, just as much as I was interested in science fiction. Physics, Geology, and Astronomy were my areas of interest. PURE SCIENCE that had no time for the supernatural or metaphysical.

So when I wasn’t dreaming, I believed that when you die, you die, and that’s it. When your heart stops, and you close your eyes for the final time, you wake up dead.

No More of Anything!

The human brain finds this scenario a tough call. Which is why ever since we jumped down from the trees two-million years ago, we’ve been concocting stories of the afterlife, backed up by whacky tales of Messiahs on Earth, to make our life here more palatable. To stop us freaking out over our true destiny. Which is to lie down and die. A piece of meat for the vultures.

Which was why — like many — I couldn’t accept this. It was too final, too brutal, and for what? In essence, nothing. I therefore, couldn’t help believing in the afterlife. Why not? It’s normal to want to go on living, and given the power of the human brain, there was nothing stopping me envisaging such a Nirvana. Especially, if it set up a meeting with my dead mother again.

Throughout my adult life, I’ve always held on to this ideal, to varying degrees, depending on how I was feeling. I’ve never belonged to any of the main (or minor) religions, but I’ve always been willing to err on the side of caution that a version of Heaven existed. However implausible.

Until the death of my father.

Death of Dad

Then everything changed. I didn’t realize it at first. For the first six months after he died in May 2022, I assumed my father had gone to the same mystical place where my mother had gone. That place that didn’t exist, but must exist, in order for me to hang on to my sanity.

But over the last few months, the realization that he hasn’t gone there, and that he is indeed dead — really dead! — has only just dawned on me. And it’s an odd feeling. All that thought of the mystical afterlife ideal has vanished. Replaced instead by the stark reality of existence. That when I die, just like my father and mother, there is nothing to look forward to except a hole in the ground. No More of Anything!

So Why Now?

If she had lived, my mother would be 80 in July this year. We’d probably be organizing a big birthday bash for her, in the knowledge that she might not be around to celebrate too many more. Pull out all the stops and give her a really good day.

Of course, she may have lived to be 90 or 100 — it’s not unthinkable. But even if she hadn’t, and she’d died tomorrow, it wouldn’t be a shock. Old people die, it’s what they do!

As it happened, my mother died suddenly when I was eight. I say suddenly, but only for me. All my relatives knew she was ill, they just didn’t tell me. So when she died one Saturday lunchtime as I was coming back from a friend’s house, I was pretty shocked. A shock that has stayed with me ever since.

Or at least up until recently. When my father died, the shock of losing my mother lessened. As though a valve had been released, and I could breathe again. They were not in Heaven, they were dead. And after forty years of turmoil and grief, I could put my parents to rest like any normal person would.

There are plenty of psychological arguments here, but I think in conclusion, the simplest thing I can say, is that for the first time in over forty years, I’m actually free!

Free of thoughts about Heaven (and Hell). Free of thoughts of where my mother is and is she safe. Free to forget and get on with my life.

Thanks for thinking. For more thought