I think I need to clear something up here, more in my own head than anywhere else.
The further time takes me away from this, the more perspective I get on death and grief and this whole universe changing event in general. It’s logically- the bigger the distance, the more of the picture you see.
And this is all becoming bizarrely mundane for me- I have to remind myself that dealing with a suicide, a visible one, isn’t really a ‘normal’ activity. I remember the distress in the health workers voice, on the phone to me the weekend directly After this happened- “There is no literature on this, Lori… I can’t find a documented, psychologically studied case.”
An oddity. So horribly, horrifically unique.
Anyway. Enough of that. That’s what we’re here to talk about today.
There’s something that’s been slowly solidifying itself in my the subconscious part of my mind, just lately, the part that deals with that big picture, and brings it into focus as it drifts away. There’s a phenomenon that has grated on me since Tony’s death. I don’t know if it’s specific to this situation or death in general.
But there was so much discussion, so much emphasis placed, on how Tony would feel, what Tony would think of this or that.
When someone’s dead, they’re…well…dead. Isn’t that the essence of it, the bottom line? They don’t think or feel anything.
I believe in an AfterLife, I think. I have to, after this, because some nights that’s the only thing that lulls me to sleep- the thought that there is an afterlife, and eventually I’ll get there, and Tony and I will catch up over tea and toast, and all this pain will seem just like the blink of an eye, a stitch in time. But if there is an AfterLife, I’d hate to think of it as the kind of place where you worry and stress about the insignificant things that happen in the life that going on without you, below. I doubt you’d stress and stew over stupid things, little arguments and trite, petty concerns.
Wouldn’t you be returned to your happiest..? That’s what I’d like to think. You’d be returned to the time of your life when you were happiest, felt complete, when life’s problems felt passable and mundane, and the good times where so sweet the aftertaste of them ran from one to the next.
So, I like to think my husband is in a place where he loves us, where all the material concerns of life are gone- where he doesn’t stress about all this bitching going on.
And if he is that place, then all he’d want to do is protect me.. all he’d want to do is make all the hurt better.
And that’s where I am, right now. Damn the guilt over how Tony would feel, about this, or that. Tony’s not here. And I have to think, I have to believe, he’d be OK with me doing whatever it is I need to get through, as long as both myself and our babies are happy and safe.
The AfterLife- it can’t be a place where you’re bothered by little stuff. If it was, why would anyone bother going there at all…?