The Better Place

I was just thinking, that I envy people of strong religious faith sometimes. It gets a little tricky when your own convictions are wishy-washy at best, coming from a childhood of church and Sunday school, but never having it be an overwhelming theme. No prayers at meals or bedtime, no threats of judgement. It was just something you did on weekends, being a religion far more liberal than most. Then you grow up and questions are asked and your beliefs fall more in line with being about a vague sense of energy and connectedness in the universe, that your upbringing was just one way of describing and packaging all of that.

I have envy because even though I feel a sense of connectedness still to my mom, not really a presence, but... some sense of her, I don't know what that means. I have envy because it would be nice to be able to say "she's in a better place, and she's looking down and watching over us and can hear our thoughts and prayers" and that's what that "sense" of her is, I just don't have that kind of faith. I can't commit fully to any thought other than what I've seen. That she suffered through an awful disease, finally let go, had her body burnt up and sealed in a crypt in a brass urn, and she's just... gone. I have envy that people can get comfort from their faith dispite those awful thoughts.

The place where she's buried, I saw something I'd never seen before. Urns on display. For a much higher fee than the outdoor marble crypts, one can have their remains displayed in glass fronted cabinets in a climate controlled chapel. The sight of this all at once interested and repulsed me. I liked the idea of having a diorama like display of a persons interests and life. Better to remember them by. You learned a lot more about the person laid to rest there when there was a photo included, or some small remnant of a hobby, like the vintage stork sewing scissors I have a replica of in one of the cases, but then at the same time it was somewhat eerie. Like some form of preservation, not unlike being frozen. I can't help but think I'd much rather be put straight in the ground, or cremated and spread someplace. My mom hated the idea of being buried, but I have to say if I'm going to beleive in the universe and the connectedness of everything, then it makes more sense that I be turned into dirt to grow new things.

Can she hear me when I tell her I'm sorry? That I appologize that I couldn't hug her or give her any words of hope her last night, instead of sitting there for hours watching her breathe as she slept, hoping she wasn't in pain and that hearing my dad and I talking could give her some small amount of comfort. That she was right, that I should have called more, and stopped in more often.

Whether or not she's looking down on us in the afterlife, being reincarnated, a part of the universe, or only living as a memory for everyone who knew her, if she was never going to recover, she is in a better place, I just wish she hadn't gone there so soon.