When I was a kid, we raised rabbits, a few of which were pets, as well as a dog and a few cats through the years. I don’t recall the first pet to die and be buried on the west side of the yard, but I recall we did a little ceremony of wrapping it up in a shoe box and burying it and putting a stick up with its name, saying prayers and throwing flowers over it. My dad would say, “Animals are born and animals die.” When we happened upon a deceased bird or frog, they’d get a ceremony too. “Frogs are born and frogs die,” my brother would say, “Birds live and birds die.” Then one day Ricky DeFeo’s dad across the street died, and when my dad heard, he looked sad and said, “People are born and people die. When you die, you get to have anything you want.” That was my first personal people death.
I’d thought before about animals dying and knew that new ones would be born again to replace them, so we’d always have enough animals and frogs and birds and fish and such. But to think that way about people was a whole other thing. And to think that when we die, we get to have anything we want… did that mean the animals got to have anything they wanted, too?
Did the birds get endless blue skies to fly in and endless worms to eat? Maybe the worms got endless rich soil to travel through, maybe the frogs got endless ponds to hang out in. Maybe the pets got endless fields of food and friends and fun games forever. If we people got what we wanted when we died, then everything else must get that, too, right?
I began to be confused when people got sad when there was a death. Especially if it was someone really old and sick. I mean, people are born and people die, right? I asked mom why wasn’t everyone just happy at the funeral since everyone gets what they want in the end? She told me that not everyone believed that, that some people believe you are judged for your sins and can burn in hell if you were not worthy.
WTF? I think I was about 7 and remembered my dad’s mom talking like that. What a weird thing to believe, I thought. Why didn’t Mom just tell Grandma the truth? Well, Grandma thought her story was the truth, Mom said. But, how can there be two truths?
Mom told me it was like when we went on the weekend boat trips. Everyone in the family loved boating, except me. Everyone loved being out in the open ocean all day, except me. I distracted myself by reading a favorite book or drawing. If someone asked me tomorrow how today’s boat trip was, I would tell them my truth. Everyone else’s truth would be the sea life they spotted and the ships they saw and the adventures of the day. I had a different experience, so I had a different truth. But that was how there could be two truths, she said. A tall person sees life just a little differently than a short person.
That made sense to me, even then. From that time, I started to look for the other side of every story and doing that opened a new world to me. I found that if I could accept even the most crazy premise, I could find the logic in it. That helped me to understand why people thought as they did and behaved as they did.
I remember asking Daddy, on that day that Ricky DeFeo’s dad died; the day Daddy said, People are born and people die. When you die, you get to have anything you want. I said “I miss the big pine tree that used to be in front of Mrs. Ivey’s house next door. If I died, could we have it back?” He told me yes, and that I could have the entire street be anything I wanted it to be. Anyone I wanted could live there, too. Even Grandma and Grandpa. Everyone all together. That sounded pretty good to me. It still does.
People are born and people die. My experience is it’s really just like they’re in the other room, when they go. It’s like they went into the kitchen while I was in the living room, or they just went to bed sooner that I did. Sooner or later I’ll get up and go into that room, too. But for now, I’m in this room and they are in that room, and it’s only our bodies that are apart. And if I believe that to be true, in time I will feel just as connected as if they had never left physical form.
It was, thankfully, that way when my mother passed in 1996. We were so close and spoke every day. I always thought I’d flip out when she passed, but it was such a blessed experience, I had no idea. A huge veil of understanding parted and I felt bathed in her grace and love as never before. I still do. I now KNOW there is no separation.
When friends grieve, I pray for the pain to be taken from their heart, and for them to feel bathed in the grace and love of their departed one. I pray for them to feel their presence and know their connection. I pray that when they speak to them, they do it knowing their message is received. I pray they know that the answer they feel they receive indeed comes from their loved one, and not from their own mind.
And, in time, they will know it.