When i think of what it might be like to die, because believe me i have considered it a few times over the last year or so, i have two thoughts. One it will be nothing and if it is nothing then it won't bother me, the other is that there is something, now don't get me wrong i don't have a faith, but i am also very open to the suggestion that this is not it. I don't believe in God i think God is something that man has manifested in order to give himself purpose. I do not understand the idea that Jesus died for us, what God would believe that this was a sacrifice worth making and the whole idea of it just doesn't make sense. The creationist theory doesn't stand up and of course it would have to be the woman who gets punished for eating the apple. Buddhism has been the nearest i have gone towards faith as it comes from within they don't look at external mystical sources to underpin their faith.
Anyway energy doesn't just disappear does it? What ever the life force is that commands our body and thoughts be it a soul or spirit can't just dissipate and become nothing....well this is what i am counting on and the thought that i will never see my parents again or my children is too awful to contemplate anyway....so i don't!
I think of all the people who have died before, we have all known we have it coming so i will just meet my fate that much earlier. It is all relative anyway, i could argue with someone that at least they got to see their kids grown and settled before they die, then what about the girl i knew who died a few years ago suddenly from lupus, who at 27 never got to experience the joy of motherhood or leave her legacy behind, talk to the parents of the baby who died stillborn and at least i saw my children grow and flourish. It is all relative so i never ask why me or be moan my lot, i feel far more sadness for my boys who in the future will wonder how i would have handled that situation or realise that in this situation i would have done this or that for them, as i have done when remembering my dad and all the lost moments that we never got to share or that he got to see.
The one thing that gives me peace and calm about dying is that if there is something beyond this existence then my parents are already there and waiting and it would be so good to see them again with all my uncles and Aunts that i have lost recently. When i imagine the point of passing on in my head i see mum and dad and have the feeling of walking into a completely new experience completely overwhelming but tempered by their love and support. I have never thought that it would be awful and i have never dwelt on the pain that maybe in place and yes harping back to the beginning it is just maybe nothing and if it is well that's me gone, but i tend towards there being another life however alien a concept that it is, it is less alien to me than the existence of an omnipotent God.
However i know that i will be buried by a baptist minister, how hypocritical does that sound! and i am happy for her to carry out a service, because she is also a good friend and neighbour. She lives next door and has been so helpful and supportive when i haven't been well and she knows me. I have attended too many funerals where the celebrant has appeared at the last minute and had a half hour chat with the family in order to encapsulate the essence of a person's life. I feel lucky for me and especially the boys that Carol will be there to arrange it all before i go and then deliver what i want at the end. Through Carol's influence and attending the youth club and going ot soul survivor the boys are far more faithful than me, even though i spent my youth going to sunday school and my parents were faithful to the end in the church of england and were a big part of the christian community where they lived, so having a christian service will mean more to them than to me.
The service will be what i want i firmly see it as my way of saying goodbye, the advantage of knowing that your time is on it's way is the preparation that you can make in saying goodbye and ensuring that as much as you can your feelings are expressed and legacies left. I feel very strongly about leaving words of the future, i remember watching Gavin and Stacy of all things and finding the scene in the car on the way to the wedding so emotional when Stacy's uncle reads her a letter from her dad who passed away, telling her how he wished he could be there and leaving her words of wisdom. That appeals to me so that somehow although you are not there you can still have some input into a special moment.
I have started to write things down in a book and of course there is this blog which the boys and my friends in the 'real' world do not have access to at the moment as i would feel too vulnerable for people i see on a daily basis to read what i am writing here, but those of you who read this because we have connected through our shared experience of cancer or have found this looking through, are quite welcome, you either understand enough of what i am saying or are far away enough not to compromise how i feel about writing all this down. But when i am gone or maybe nearer the end then i hope it will be of some comfort or of interest for those i know personally to read it.
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