I don't really know what I am so obsessed. I am not suicidal, and I'm not depressed. It may be because I am no stranger to death, it seems to have haunted me my whole life in different forms.
It started when I was 7 years old and my first pet, a housecat, ran outside one day when the door happened to be left open a few seconds too long, and she came back gagged with her collar tightended purposefully around her mouth and poisoned. She died in my arms later that same day. Then my grandfather, whom I felt closer to than my own father, died when I was 10.
When I was 11, our dogs broke their chains one day and ran a mile down the road and ate prize-winning sheep for dinner, the bodies of which my mother and I had to bury. A string of more pets murders followed--I've never had a pet die of natural causes. And for three years in a row, when I turned 14, 15 and 16 years old--someone I knew died on my birthday each year.
When I was 15, I watched a girl die. She was speeding around on the notorious twisty roads of Northern California. It had just started to rain, so the roads were slick. I saw her car slide off the road into a tree. My mom tried to pull her out of the car, but the doors were welded shut from the pressure of the impact. She was pinned in the car from the waist down. We saw her bleed out of the mouth, nose and eyes. And the woman, Elaine, started to come to me in my dreams and tell me about her life. We didn't know her name at the time. And we didn't know her name until 3 months later, a man who arrived at the scene right after us happened to work at the general store in town, had her obituary, and he gave it to me. Said I could keep it. Turned out she died on her birthday and her name was, indeed, Elaine, and everything she had told me in my dreams was confirmed.
Then, of course, two weeks after I moved to New York City for college, it was September 11, 2001. And I couldn't retreat home, because I was forbidden to ever step foot there again. So I was forced to live in Washington, DC instead. I didn't sleep more than two hours at a time for 6 months because I was afraid another terrorist attack would occur while I slept. And the nightmares were unbearable.
All of this, coupled with the fact that whenever I saw missing person reports on Channel 3 news, I got images of how they died, and where their bodies were. My mother said this was due to an over-active imagination. Until I started to tell her all of the things I saw, and then we'd start watching the news and when the bodies were found, I was always right. My mom said I was just perceptive. What is perception, and what is perceptiveness? What does it mean to see a photo of a 14-year old missing boy and suddenly a stream of images flood your mind: he's beat to death with bats and left by the side of a the American River? Then a month later, another news report airs and everything you saw is confirmed. Is that perception? Is it an over-active imagination? Is it something else? Because it happens so often, there is a need for definition.
I have had these thoughts, images and dreams for years, and I have spent a good deal of my life afraid of death. I have considered going into fields where I would have to confront death, like a forensic scientist or a medical examiner or even a mortician. I think I am fascinated by these kinds of careers because not only would it make me face my fear, it would be helping others at the same time, whether that help comes in the form of determining the time and cause of death, and/or giving peace to families and victims.
Because I am a writer, and my major was English Literature, I am trained to see and seek symbolism and analyze everything I read--and this probably transferred over into the way I live life. I feel like death follows me around and since every pet I had was killed, is that some form of foreshadowing into my own future? See how I can probably infuse symbolism into every occurence? I realize that this is probably the product of an over-active imagination.
I am revealing these occurences because I want to know what opinions out there are on certain topics related the above. I am alone a majority of the time nowadays, I have a lot of think about and not many opportunities to verbally communicate with others on the subject. Besides, on the surface, it is a morbid topic. If you see and talk to friends and family only on occasion, do you really want to depress the entire room by posing the topic of eminent death?
I want to know what you think, and I would appreciate your participation in what I hope will turn into a social discourse. Here are some questions I'd like you to consider, and if you feel so inclined (and I hope that you do) answer them in the comments section below (there is no word limit to comments, so please don't feel like you're imposing upon my blog)--I have tried to not write leading questions, but I have inserted some questions to brainstorm answers in case you want to answer but don't know where to start:
said...1. Persistence of the human soul. Yes, I certainly believe that. Why? I suppose because I've had it religiously fed into me. Though, I think there's enough out that that gives some evidence towards it, wholly scientific or not.
2. Hard to say on that one. I mean, I believe in life after death. Whether or not it is the Judeo-Christian view of heaven or hell, reincarnation or some other existance we are not aware of, I'm not wholly sure. But I know there is something more than just bam, you're gone.
3. Yes, I have life insurance. My parents set it up for me when I was younger. I now cover the policy myself. As for a will, not really. I figure if I croaked now, most of my stuff would either be sold, given to Jeff to keep, thrown out and/or kept as a reminder of me. Personally, I don't care what happens to it after I die. None of it is important to anyone other than myself, and once I die, I don't need it anymore. Nor will I worry if someone is bitter that they didn't get my Nyarlethotep plushie...
4. I can honestly say... I don't know. I've had one time that honestly *felt* like a paranormal experience, but that was aaages ago.
5. Heh. That's such a cool idea. Too bad its accuracy is non-existant, considering I can keep checking my death clock and it'll change every time I click. I mean *EVERY* time. Even if I click it a second later.
6. Our culture has failed. We hide death from our children, yet we teach them to fear it. We candy-coat it for them in order to protect them from the reality of it. Granted, that can be said of life as well. :-P
7. I can say that I am not afraid of dying, but that isn't wholly true. I've never been in a situation where my life hung on a thread. No matter what we say, until we've passed that moment of truth, we will never truly know how afraid of death we really are.
As a whole, I think it's not death that would scare me, it's what comes after that does. Everything in our existance isn't permanent; it is created and destroyed. Even that which has "stood the test of time" still either needs renovating, repairs or maintenance. The things in our existance has a beginning and an end. We are slaves to the perception of time. Imagining something outside that perception for us is impossible. I know, I've tried to consider it, and that is what scares me. Infinity, eternity. We know the defenitions, but we cannot understand them as we have no concept of them.
So, I think for myself, that is what I fear more. Not the cessation of this existance but the meaning of the next one.
8. I'm not entirely sure. Within a familiy unit, it is something that needs to be done. You have to announce your wishes somehow. (I suppose that's why they make wills...) As for among friends... I think it depends on the friend. Obviously, I can do so with you. I think it's a touchy subject to bring up, and some people would be bothered by it. I think they are the ones that choose to deny death, despite the media cramming it into our minds.
Well, I hope those were the kinds of answers you were looking for and I hope I didn't beat around the bush too much.
said...1) Do I believe in the persistence of the human soul? Hmm... I do believe that people have souls, and I do believe that if that person "good" for the most part, then their soul will live on after their body dies. So yes. I have a soul, and I think it'll be around forever.
2) I believe in Heaven and Hell. I'm not exactly sure how it'll be like to be in those places (if they are actual "places") but I do think there's something after a person dies. Why do I believe that...I don't know. I just do. It's like knowing the sky is blue or the sun is a star. It's just common knowledge for me and something I accept to be true.
3) I don't know if I have a life insurance policy. I've never taken one out, but I don't know if my parents have one for my sister and me. I never thought to ask. Huh. I'll ask Mom tomorrow.
I don't have a will, but I used to write wills all the time, especially when I was in middle school (I wrote wills all the way into college though). I don't know where any of them are. Haha, with my luck, I'll die tomorrow and the only will anyone will find is the one I made in 8th grade when I bequeathed all my musical books to Emily Stewart. Should we have wills? I don't know. The reason why I made wills out in the first place is so people could have something to remember me by. That, and there were just some gifts I wanted to leave to people in the untimely event of my death, to let them know I was thinking of them.
4) I think everyone has had a paranormal experience at one time or another. Every once in a while, I'll feel a brush against my neck or something, and I'll turn around and there's no one there. It's weird. Or my sister and I will just know stuff about each other, kind of like being twins, but not. If one gets hurt, the other doesn't feel it, but we were able to guess what clothes each other was wearing.
5) No, I don't believe in the Death Clock. It's like the Psychic Network - for entertainment purposes only :-)
6) I don't know. That's something I haven't thought a lot about either. I think that our culture has been showing more death lately than it used to when I was younger, especially with the war in Iraq and all. There also have been a lot more forensic shows, and they've been getting gutsy-er with showing dead people on TV. In old movies, the audience would only see a sheet raised as the star identified the person who jumped off the building, or the hint of a body floating in the river, but nothing grotesque like nowadays. I'm not sure if it's more appropriate, but just different.
7) No, I'm not afraid of dying. I'm happy with the way I've lived my life so far, so if I died tomorrow I wouldn't be afraid. The only thing I think I'd regret was not living longer to live the life that I want to live.
8) No, it's not socially unacceptable. I remember my mom used to talk about death to my sister and me all the time. She'd always say, "When I die, I want you two to blah blah blah...." Or, "I'll give this to you when I die, and this to your sister..." or stuff like that. My mom and I had a discussion a couple nights ago about what we'd want if we were ever vegetables. Death is a part of life, and it seems weird to me to not be able to talk about it with my friends and family. They're my friends and family, I should be able to talk to them about anything, right?
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