Death: The usual escape from this life

Maramis Choufani

Just as we always seem to be willing to share in someone’s birthday greetings — or join in singing the “official” birthday song (especially now, since it is no longer “forbidden” due to the royalties issue) — for our family and friends and even strangers on a plane or in a restaurant, we also seem to be willing to offer passing away sentiments that amount to some version of “I’m sorry for your loss” or the more simple, “I’m sorry.” We say such things even if we didn’t know the person or even if we knew the person and are not at all sorry, whatever that might mean.
Although I would and do happily lend my good will to any birthday girl or boy, and add a comment or two to indicate my best wishes for their coming year, the comments I would make to those left behind at the passing away of a loved one is a whole different story.
There are those who believe in a life to come — as in eternal life — and those who believe that death is pretty much it — as in there is nothing else to come — whether or not they choose to listen to those who claim they speak for the dead, or believe that the dead may show up as “spirits,” or voices with a message, even as they still strongly profess they do not believe in that whole after-this-life experience.
For those who do not, or cannot, believe in the afterlife, it must be extra sad and extra hard on them to be faced with their personal belief that they will never see their loved ones again. I can’t even begin to imagine how they possibly get through life losing friends or loved ones and carrying that burden of permanent loss around with them.
I can agree that it can be seen as impossible to know if life eternal exists. There are several people in my life who take that stance.
Since we obviously cannot know for sure, experientially, until we get there, “research” on the subject will necessarily be limited and unprovable, “testimonials” notwithstanding. Therefore, we can go either way — meaning we can choose to believe in it or not. But those are not the only choices for us, as it were, since we may actually have grown up “having faith” that eternal life exists, if it were taught to us in our religion, or if we chose a religion that teaches
such a desirable belief, whether we believed first, before embracing that religion, or embraced it because the teachings resonated with our soul.
I say “desireable belief” because who wouldn’t want life to go on forever, if that were really possible, and more importantly, a reality? Perhaps the person who would raise his hand to that question would be one who has had such a hard, sad and lonely, and/or painful life that he might be looking forward to the nothingness of beyond.
But it seems likely that such a person would only want to choose nothingness if they imagined that life everlasting would be more or less something like the life they had just lived — the life of pain and suffering, the life of misery — as opposed to a life of increasing joy and fulfillment. I would dare say that if the person could rise above that belief and substitute the more logical belief that the next life would more than likely be much better, based on the logical
consideration that Paradise (God’s home) would be free from the miseries and tragedies of this physical life, the choice would be different.
For there to be an afterlife, someone would have had to create the concept of it, plan for the reality of it, set it into motion, arrange for the “mechanics” of it, including a plan and opportunity for lots of wonderful activity, enough to last a forever-time (as opposed to a limited lifetime) and somebody would have to run it in a place that had already been created for all those who go on to that afterlife.
Most of us would call that somebody “God.” So if a person does not believe in God, I don’t know how they could believe in an afterlife…
And where would that life be lived, anyway, and how would it be decided who goes there (many people hate others or just don’t want to mingle with certain individuals or even large groups of people. How in the world would they be able to share eternity if they can’t even manage one puny human lifetime of brotherly love?And what would they
do in that totally extra-long afterlife existence? (Attending “afterlife school” to learn how to become more of how we all should have been in the first place, will no doubt take up a big hunk of time, I’m sure, since if we couldn’t all get along here on earth while we had the chance, I’m sure we’ll have to stick with it until we “get it right.” No hate or prejudice or ill will toward anyone allowed in Paradise.
People obviously need God for their everlasting existence, since people can’t even bring their own physical body back to life without all kinds of help from a medical team and life support equipment, which is never guaranteed to work — and even if that does work, that body has a rather short “shelf life” of usually less than 100 years – so how could such vulnerable-to-physical-death humans activate that special non-physical part of themselves that is meant to last forever, without the involvement of their Creator.
No one can prove God exists, since if they could do that, without any wiggle room for doubt or rebuttal, what a different world this would be! Yet dedicated atheists continue to come to their own conclusions that God DOES exist. Said one atheist, “I didn’t realize that the reason the topic of God weighed so heavily on my mind,wasbecause God was pressing the issue. I have come to find out that God wants to be known. He created us with the intention that we would know him. He has surrounded us with evidence of himself and he keeps the question of his existence squarely before us. It was as if I couldn’t escape thinking about the possibility of God. In fact, the day I chose to acknowledge God’s existence, my prayer began with, ‘Ok, you win…’ It might be that the underlying reason atheists are bothered by people believing in God is because God is actively pursuing them.”
When one muses over such things as the afterlife, it seems rather evident that there would have to be someone of superior intelligence and someone who loves us enough to want to “keep us around” forever behind it all. Consider all the people that have ever been born and died; there would have to be some kind of plan — and place — to accommodate them all, wouldn’t you think?
The point is, death comes to us all, unless we have another plan of escape from this mortal coil, and it would probably be a good idea for us all to come to grips with it now, as in, before it happens to someone we love, since that very defined separation can be painful enough, without going through a last-minute period of wondering if we’ll ever see our loved one again; or worse yet, believing we won’t.
That very thought system may well have something to do with those who find it hard to talk about death, or would choose to be kept alive no matter what, hoping against hope that science will come up with a way to “cure” what they are dying from.
A very dear friend’s husband passed away yesterday. He had been ill for quite a while, but this past month it was evident that he was not going to be long for this world. Even knowing that death is inevitable does not make it easy to accept when it happens. Yet being assured, by whatever means one is able to be so assured, that one will see the loved one again, is the best comfort one can have — if one really has loved the dearly departed.
Life is a wonderful gift, and I would like to suggest that while most people don’t want to dwell on the dividing line between this life and the one to come, its name is Death, and there will come a time when we’ll all want to escape to that better world.
* * * * *
Maramis Choufani is the Managing Editor of the Las Vegas Tribune. She writes a weekly column in this newspaper. To contact Maramis, email her at maramis@lasvegastribune.com.