“Hello. Hello. Please, please help me. “Can’t you hear me? I’m right here. Please don’t ignore me.
I really want to tell you that I’m still here. I’m not non-existent. Please give me some sign of acknowledgement... Can you hear me?... But of course, you can’t. I’m on the other side.”
The above could be cries from a child victim of a horrendous recent bombing in Gaza. Can you possibly imagine being stuck, immobile and trapped in a dark cavity sandwiched between tons of concrete rubble and slabs?
You send out pleas and prayers for rescue from the cold, pain, hunger and thirst, but mostly from being left to die alone in the rubble!
Similar nonverbal communications to these could also, in my view, sometimes come from someone who has crossed the portal, passed away, departed, or expired; there are so many terms for the word death.
But what if your body has expired, however, you are still here? What if death is just the demise of the corporal flesh and blood physical body?
And at such a point you experience a huge relief from the cessation of suffering, pain and agony of the death process as you pull away from its lifeless form.
The pain is finally gone. But you now suffer the tremendous loss of your family and loved ones.
The shock of losing all your possessions, what you have worked so hard for all of your life and finally achieved, of your house, car, career, all of them lost and gone... But you’re still here!
If you have lost someone who has been near and dear to your heart, then you may well have shortly thereafter sensed a presence and have had thoughts, dreams and impressions that your friend was, is, still around.
Could this be so? Were these communications from the other side? Were they reassurances of “I’m alright. I still exist and I still love you”?
I know it’s hard for us to accept such ideas. For so long we’ve been thought that we are but flesh and blood physical entities, and that death is the end of the road.
We’ve also been told that if there is an afterlife that it is experienced by some nebulous other shadow entity that we term a soul or spirit.
We have for so long been educated toward the belief that we are but a body, have one life and that we can only communicate, experience and perceive through the five scenes of our physical plain.
So, if your loved one is dead and gone physically but you are still receiving his or her communication... Well, doesn’t this bring up many questions? Questions about who we really are, you could say.
Questions relating to our physical and spiritual existence. Are we, could we be, as the ancient Greeks described man - “A spiritual being clothed in flesh”?
Couldn’t this be a glimpse at our most fundamental question as to what is our true identity?
If we really are spiritual beings then wouldn’t our bodies be just like suits or garments? Couldn’t we discard them and still continue to exist as our true selves? Wouldn’t a lifetime be similar to a role we perform in a play; a drama of personal experience played out through many years? A personality could be like a character whose part we assume. Are we not like the actor who gets so very involved in his performance that he forgets or shuts out awareness of his true identity of self as he actually becomes the character he is playing?
Well, these are some questions of the ages that man has for so long been pondering. So, I think that here in our present electronic and very materialistic age, this might be a good time for us to reexamine these all-important basic fundamentals and conditions of our existence.
I personally very much dislike seeing someone in distress. I think it’s always best to help, communicate and ease one’s transition from this life to the next.
Bodies are fragile. They are susceptible to all sorts of physical stress, pain and trauma. An excessive amount of heat, cold or lack of oxygen can cause them to fade away like burned out candles. So, we protect, guard and get very attached to them over time.
The process of one’s birth, the assumption of a body, is a monumental, dramatic and traumatic experience. So also, is exiting and departing this body after such a long time of associating and identifying with it.
So, my dear friend, when you hear the bell toll, and it finally tolls for you, is it really the bitter end?
Does that dark curtain come down forever more?... Or does life continue?
I would very much like to know your opinion on all this.
Dan O’Connor can be reached at danhughoconnor@gmail.com