Thoughts: Death
As my grandfather passed over the last few weeks, I found myself examining my interpretation of Death.
Atheism has always come naturally to me, and while I am unbothered by a lack divine meaning to existence, death is still a hard pill to swallow. No God is necessary for a person to engender love in others, and the sudden irreversible loss of that person hurts. While I grieve and mourn as bitterly as the next person -- more, perhaps, without belief that the soul continues on -- I have stuck, dogmatically, to the literal interpretation that dead is dead.
Meditating upon this, I now question myself.
Why must I, who can cry for fictional characters on a screen, who hold within me unwritten imagined universes, not allow myself to suspend disbelief here? Knowing something is untrue has never prevented me from exploring or enjoying an idea before; why must I be so firm on this? Are the atheist police planning on inspecting my heart and mind and finding me lacking? If I am master of my own mind, what a cruel master I must be.
Perhaps this habit is some remnant from a teenage me, grasping onto my lack of faith as if it were it's own religion at risk of being crusaded against. Or, perhaps my years steeped in scientific rigour made me feel that imagination had no place in the workings of reality. It feels infantile to me now to be such a staunch vocal defender of "Nothing happens, you're just dead." It is a mentality that provides no value.
All lives are comprised of many tragedies, and I have many more awaiting me. Why not allow myself some reprieve? What's the harm in envisioning the souls of lovers reunited? To imagine a rebirth as a cub or sapling? To imagine, occasionally, the soul of a beloved pet nearby? Being not chained by any faith or scripture, I am free to be whimsical here, to temporarily lean into the beliefs of others, to pick in my own heart the ending that I feel they deceased most enjoy to be true, or the one I would most enjoy to be true.
What's the harm in a little fantasy, even if I don't truly believe it? And who's to judge if I do?