Day of reckoning

All dogs go to heaven, according to the dark animation movie. What about humans?

We know we all return to dust. But does something live on when we’ve been reduced to fertilizer? The average human is terrified by the permanence of death, and believing in an afterlife – the thought that when our body gives up, we live on in a different form, in another dimension – helps maintain sanity.

Believing in a soul is also typically accompanied by belief in a day of reckoning, when we have to account for our deeds as we seek our rightful place in eternity.

We like to joke about what we would tell Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates, when he asks if we’ve been bad or good (sorry, can’t resist the Christmas line), and counter-checks our story with our guardian angel or heaven’s sophisticated CCTV.

We also like to joke that hell seems to be a better place, with all the sinners having fun and enjoying sexy pop music while everyone is bored to death playing the harp in heaven.

At a certain point, however, I think many people begin pondering their mortality and seriously worry about accountability for their actions.

If we worried more about where we might end up forever after life, and not just when we’re at our deathbed, the world could become a better place.

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Believing that a part of us lives on forever also gives comfort to those who have lost their loved ones.

A friend who recently lost her husband in a sudden incident said she often wondered where he was now. I comforted her with a story I always tell bereaved friends: my recollection of my father, near death 19 years ago, complaining to us that it was too warm and dark at the brightly lit, near-freezing hospital ICU, and saying heaven was much better. My father slipped in and out of the two worlds for about a month, during which he told us he visited churches with his departed mother and chatted regularly with his dead relatives who kept him company.

He also told us of visits by a stranger of undetermined gender who stood at the foot of his bed and who he said would escort him upon his departure.

Of course we dismissed the stories as the delirious raving of the grievously ill.

But it was comforting to believe that he had company ready to welcome him and he seemed headed for a better place. If it was simply delirium, I hoped it became reality for him.

I’ve heard other people tell similar stories, which we swapped during wakes or funerals. We knew when a sick relative was close to death when he or she started talking with departed loved ones while alone.

I know a woman who was often told by her ailing father to avoid his dead mother who sat at the foot of his bed and watched over him. The woman saw nothing but she dutifully steered clear of that spot. When her father asked her to serve his mom coffee, the woman obeyed. Of course the coffee remained untouched.

My elderly neighbor who lived alone, in the months before he died, chatted loudly almost every night with nobody (or at least no one we could see) outside his gate.

Why are such things common? Is there a virus that causes delirium when one is seriously ill?

It’s more comforting to believe that we have a soul that outlives our mortal body, and equally important, that we can see our departed loves ones again.

* * *

As a crime reporter I saw bodies at various stages of decomposition and was a regular visitor at morgues. I have warned relatives and friends that if they ever saw and smelled a decomposing body, they would never want to be buried in a coffin six feet under and would instead opt for cremation.

We all return to ashes anyway, unless we’ve been embalmed like the Egyptian pharaohs (but who wants to look like a shriveled log?) or pumped with gold inside and out like the Tibetan lamas before the Chinese took over.

After being reduced to ashes, however, do we live on? Is there an afterlife, a heaven and hell? Or a purgatory on the way to our final destination?

Perhaps spiritual leaders need better imagery. The eternal fires of hell seem so improbable that people are prepared to risk perpetual damnation in exchange for indulging in life’s sinful excesses, and never mind the consequences.

Members of faiths that believe in reincarnation subscribe to the idea that everyone gets a second chance, or even multiple chances. Other faiths including Christianity preach only one life, so we should make the most of it – not to get rich or famous or have the most number of sex partners, but to prepare for our day of reckoning and eternal life.

If we believed in this, we might strive to be on our best behavior as much as we can, to do no harm, and we might have a better world.

And in our bereavement over lost loved ones, we can take comfort in the thought that they are out there, waiting for an inevitable reunion, and we will never be alone.