It's funny, or rather, it's strange. You think of friends who die in terms of what YOU (& I) will no longer have. My confidant, my friend, my lover, my sounding board, my loan shark.... terms that define what you get from the relationship. Occasionally, I think of it in terms of what those around me who know the person will lose. Again though, it's a matter of how their life was made better by being a part of that dying persons existence. I can't think there is anything wrong with this, it's merely our inborn selfish nature dictating what we will or will not think about. There's something much greater that is lost than our own personal enrichment. Don't get me wrong, that is a great and wonderful thing, especially if the person lost is of a caliber of greatness that many people are thus affected by the loss. Rather, it is the history of the individual themselves. History in terms of the passions, disappointments, triumphs and failures, happiness-es, and tears. The scars and the healed wounds. The multitudinous tiny moments that we never even knew about. The secrets they never shared with another human being. Those unseen things that made them who they were. The individual is a pattern of these sequences. There are the physical and medical definitions that describe a mortal. However, the life events are not to be overlooked because they are the figurative respiration, heartbeat and synaptic firings that define a person. That loss is so great we cannot conceive of it, and it is why we are so afraid to die. We worry for those we would leave behind, to defend themselves, as we can no longer be their shield and their champion. And that is no small worry for one about to be lost to this conscience existence. Yet, there is a more looming and unspeakable hate. The hate that all we have striven for and labored over in meticulous detail will be swept away. That amazingly delicate crystalline structure that is our lives will be, in one moment, pulverized and ground into so much sand. The ones we leave behind can only marvel at the dusty pile and try to recall its beauty in form through memory.
That is our greatest tragedy.
Everyone of us paints the Mona Lisa, scores Beethoven's 9th symphony, pens Shakespearean epics, sculpts Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni's David, just by living. Then at the end the life that was, is no more. Those who remember us carry on bravely, but then, one by one, they too become part of the great forgotten and soon the living memory of our zeal and vivacity is no longer celebrated. And we are lost to eternity.
That is the real fear we should have for those we love, that they would be forgotten. That those myriad beauties that define them will lose all form and meaning. It is no loss to those not known to the man. The beauties are unknown, there is no shape. Just as they would have no concern for a planetary star to collapse in some distant galaxy compared to our own Sol's destruction.
Just as the night has a 1000 eyes
And the day but one.
Yet the light of the whole world dies
When the day is done
So too, the mind has a thousand eyes
And the heart but one.
Yet, the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.
The Bible is quite clear at Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10 that the soul dies with the person, that there is no living on after death of the corporeal being. Reincarnation attempts to address this, but again it is put in such a way that it implies a natural cycle of non-loss. The one become the other seamlessly through mystic translation and transformation. However, this soul that so many humans are confused about is nothing more than the rhythm of our existence. Like music; a song is only a song when it is being played. While the instruments are tapping, blowing or strumming the song lives and breathes and figuratively is a living soul. But stop that series of events and the song ceases to exist. 'Oh,' you might say, 'but there is SHEET MUSIC.!' The written word is only a guide that allows the song to live again, to be resurrected as it were. And a song is far cruder a construction than our lives. That is why a book, no matter how thorough or well penned by an author only allows for a vague and cursory understanding of the writer. Like the ghastly outlines of the victims of hiroshima, the pattern that an autobiography leaves is, at best, vague. Recordings, no different than recorded music. You could say it is a copy of the song, but it is not the song itself. For that you must be present to listen to the beating and harmonic disturbances of the instruments. We can watch recordings (or listen to them) of our dear loved one, and they serve as crystal reminders. But there is no chance for deeper understanding or new insights to the person we lose. As humans we simply do not have the physical or spiritual capabilities to recreate that incredibly complex pattern, that soul.
That is why there is the fear.
There exists an escape. A reprieve if you will. The Originator, the Creator of all of these concepts and their executions has the memory and the power to record these patterns and then, at will, re-execute them in the form of the individual we knew before. Every pore, every hair, every synapse. If the Creator reconstitutes those infinite qualities in exact perfection, the symphony that was the person we loved can then play on, and on, and on. According to Biblical promises, potentially forever.
So the fear, it is lessened for us.
We still grieve at the loss. We are saddened at our own plight in losing a treasure and we regret the destruction of such a beautiful thing. However, we take heart in knowing that the pattern of existence we gained so much pleasure, laughter, glee, satisfaction and absolute happiness in, will be once more. And so, we take heart and consider seriously the qualifications required of us each to be considered for that great database. For, what good is the reinstitution of such a treasure to US if we are absent to observe and enjoy it?