Apart…

This week, I attended a celebration of life memorial. My small family and I joined with others in remembering a dear special someone whose grace and love made a big impact.

Death sucks. But why?

Out of all the combined wisdom of the world’s most awarded scholars, those who’ve lived the longest, and all the philosophies, history and even religion have to offer, no one truly knows what death is or does. We can only observe death from the limited perspective of being alive.

Even folks who have medically died and miraculously returned can’t quite explain it. They’ll tell you their experience but the single common thread from story to story is that they cannot express it in a way that we can understand it. Death is truly the greatest mystery to life.

When it comes to death, my best guess is that an infant taking their first breath is more in touch with death than I can possibly conceive, until I myself cross into it. My best understanding of it — aside from the obvious end of living (as we understand living to be) — is that,

I believe death is the definitive separation.

And that’s why it sucks.

Being separated from a loved one is never an easy transition — even when all reason suggests that death is the very best outcome. . . Death still sucks.

I dabbled in philosophy and world religions in college. I was fascinated by perspectives and reason. There is so much truth out there!

One idea that always stuck is Unity of Opposites, which to paraphrase is that existence depends on the coexistence of the opposite. For example, we can only understand light because of darkness, and conversely, we can only understand darkness because of light. This notion is really all that we have as far as evidence when considering death while living:

Death is the end of what we understand, and so it must be the end.

Right. . .

But what if there’s more?

Follow me here: If life truly burst forth from the collision (or intense togetherness) of subatomic particles, then before life, there was a definitive separation and, in that separation, those particles were still present. They just hadn’t met yet.

This gives me hope.

(And yes, I’m still saved. I still love, believe in and consider myself a disciple of Jesus. Don’t lose focus.)

If life is the result of divine togetherness, and death is its definitive separation, then it is within that separation that the ingredients for life remain.

It extends beyond the circle of life.

Like the child in the womb, there had to be a before life, before life began.

And I wonder if that before isn’t simply the velocity of subatomic particles in orbit. . . Which would mean —hang on!— the collision will make its way around again.

Think about that.

I’m going to hold onto that.

I cannot prove my theory, no one who lives can. But it gives me peace to believe that I will eventually be together again with my grandma, my sister, and my dear sweet neighbor. It hurts less believing that one day our orbits will realign.

And while we’re apart, knowing it is temporary, we can both be at peace.