After-Life: Scaling a Curve
Let me tell you what I really want.
I want the people whom I love that have died to come back.
Today is Holy Thursday in the Christian tradition where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples before he's scourged and hung on a cross on Good Friday. (I'm not convinced this is a good day for Jesus.) On Easter morning, Jesus is walking in the garden and appears to Mary Magdalene. He's risen from the dead!
I know we're supposed to believe in an after-life. Christian "believers" are usually confident they have their ticket to heaven, and will be re-joined with relatives and friends. Some people believe we will be absorbed into another level (higher?) of consciousness, enlightened souls who have shed the coil of their mortal bodies. What about those who believe we are one with nature, dying and rising again with the cycles of life? Others believe our beloveds are with us as spirits or stars, ancestors to whom we can turn for guidance.
I want my ancestors who have died, especially Mom and Dad, to come back. I want them to call me on the phone, to visit for tea or a meal, to laugh with me again, to gossip, to kiss and hug me, even to get angry with me.
I want to make up for all the words or actions that I regret. I want to share with them how the vagaries of life have humbled me: "I get you were traumatized, too." I want to be with them as the person who knows what I now know. To tell them how much I love them and how beautiful they are - everyday.
I want their life to go on beside mine, rather than visitations of them in memories or dreams, both difficult and lovely. A good friend shared that he once did a meditation to connect with his parents. They told him, "We're doing fine. Now, leave us alone."
Dad appeared to me in a dream two days before the second anniversary of his death on Good Friday, March 29, 2024. In the dream, I was in a living room with family and friends. Dad laid dead on the couch. No one noticed. I shouted, "Dad's dead!" Dad sat up and opened his eyes. I was scared awake. He would have thought that he was being funny.
I don't want people I love who are alive to die. I don't want them to leave. Ever.
I tell myself a myriad of things to assuage the hole of loss. Mostly, I land in the belief that love and loss are complicated.
"Every beginning
is only a sequel, after all,
and the book of events
is always open halfway through.1"
Each day feels like I'm riding a motorcycle. On easier days, I'm gliding across the open prairie on a warm, sunny day. On other days, I'm on a slippery mountain road driving way too fast and heading toward a curve. The road is taking me into uncertainty. I'm curious and terrified.
I'm not sure where I will arrive after my tour on this planet. What do you believe?
Barbara Billey 02 Apr 2026
1. "Love at First Sight" by Wislawa Szmborska, 1996
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