On Death and the Question of Mortality

Yesterday I attended the funeral of a family friend. Her name was Debbie, and I didn’t know her very well, but I know that she was friends with my parents. I went to her funeral at the Harford Jewish Community Center to represent myself and my family in the eyes of the neighborhood.

Though it may sound slightly morbid, I do enjoy funerals. It’s not something that I’d wish to attend or that I’d ever wish on anyone, but when they do happen, I take full advantage of the situation to put my life back into perspective. It is a somber and silencing time to sit and quietly reflect on the things that matter most to me. No distraction, only thought provoking liturgy and ceremony.

Unfortunately, sometimes it takes something as drastic as a death to make me appreciate everything I have. As Andrew choked “I love you mom” while standing over her casket, and as the crowd collectively shuddered at those words, I could feel the vitality in the room. A room full of people, full of life, who had all at once suddenly discovered that they are living and in that same moment, began to appreciate the air in their lungs.

I once heard that tragedy breeds maturity, and in my experience, I have found that to be overwhelmingly true. I would like to imagine that I have been blessed with a trauma free life thus far, but I know that I have been through more than my fair share of tribulation. I know that this does not begin to compare with the tortures of people like the Invisible Children in Uganda, but how can one weigh tragedy? Grief, like happiness, is completely relative. An American tragedy might seem miniscule in the eyes of a refugee, but in our experience, it might be a scarring and difficult situation.

Tragedy is an absolute necessity. I do not want to come across as some morbid Heraclitic philosopher; I consider myself a die hard optimist. I simply acknowledge the principle of balance; everything must have an opposite. Ergo, for bliss to exist in a person’s life, so must misfortune. With every great tragedy, I have come to learn more about myself, about the world, and about what it is to love another. All of these feelings are universally striking at a funeral. The feeling hangs in the air as the congregation memorializes the passed and deeply contemplates their own mortality.

Mortality is a difficult subject to consider; every culture has a different tradition for digesting the thought of inevitable death. I have studied many cultures’ funerary rites, and all seem to draw upon the idea of morality. If there would be an afterlife, the quality of such a life is almost universally believed to be directly correlated to the quality lived in this life.

There is no way to ever know the truth about death, though, and what one experiences during and afterward. I have read some histories about scientists beheaded during the Inquisition; they would test the grip of death by blinking as long as they could after their head had been severed. I think the record was either thirteen blinks or thirteen seconds after the fallen guillotine- I should look into that again. I wonder what those last few seconds feel like?

If everything in Nature is cyclical, then life must also be cyclical. Everything is a system of rotation; planetary orbit, plate tectonics, Thirstin’s water cycle, a circulatory system, a nervous system, mitosis. All of these cycle from creation through entropy, then back into creation. Does that imply that life would also be cyclical? Reincarnation seems to me to be the most logical theory on afterlife. But then could humans’ second creative phase be impersonal; instead realized in procreation? If our great period of creation is in the conception of a new life, then what consciousness is left for us after death?

There is that concept of Heaven and Hell. I was raised on it, bred to fear and worship God lest my name be omitted from the Book of Life. I am not so sure about that book anymore. Heaven and Hell exist as two ideals; one ultimately white and one ultimately black. I do not understand how such a stark contrast can exist in an intangible world if no such ideals exist in this life. There is no black and white in life, only shades of gray. Even the Ten Commandments, supposedly the most clear and concise guide to basic morality and ethics, can be questioned in certain situations. Thou shalt not kill; what about in a war? The tribes of Abraham didn’t seem to think twice about destroying Jericho. Thou shalt not steal; what if it is with the soul intention of prolonging life? Steal this apple and burn in Hell, or starve on the streets for a shot at Heaven. (I know which decision the Martyrs made, but I question their sanity.) There are contradictory examples for each moral law. If even these laws are in grayscale, how can their rewards be so finite? I think that the Catholic Church has in the past tried to answer this question with the idea of Purgatory; moral limbo between two ends. Purgatory seems to me like a last minute excuse to fill in some gaps in core theology; there is no mention of Limbo in the Bible. I would know, I read it cover to cover a few times.

These are the things I pondered while sitting among the mourners in that crowded hall. I began to think about my own death, and have accepted it as a simple natural step in a cyclical process. People are most afraid of what they don’t know; but we can never know everything. So why live in fear? I am content with the absolute knowledge that I will never truly know. It is not a question that any person or religion can answer. I will simply try to live my life the best I can. Carpe omni.