There are many movies of ghosts who haunt the living. Sometimes the ghosts are stuck, sometimes they are seeking justice, and sometimes they just look with longing on those who are alive. In fact, in one YA novel, the ghosts can even “possess” the bodies of those who have given up in life, giving the ghosts another chance of living in a physical body. The idea that runs through these stories is clear, life is precious and those that lose it grieve its loss.
Of course, we would all agree with this. It is clear that life, given to us by God, is something we should value and protect at any cost. But, I sometimes wonder, if perhaps we don’t have the whole picture. I wonder if, in fact, we are grieving on the wrong side of the grave.
I like to imagine a different story.
One where a person dies, but then this person then has a whole new perspective. They see that they spent their whole life fearing death, but it was actually a doorway to something greater and more than beautiful than what they could have ever imagined. This person’s response to the grieving of loved ones left behind might be different from what we’d expect. Maybe, instead, this person’s grief for those left behind is actually greater than their grief for the one who died.
Let’s think of it this way–what if we could crawl back inside the minds we had inside the wombs of our mothers. To us, the life we lived inside would be the only life we knew. We would have grown up here, learned things, figured out how things worked. Then one day, things change. It gets uncomfortable, and then, we are squeezed out. This would be terrifying, something to mourn, but, as we now know, this is absolutely necessary in order for real life to begin.
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Tatyana's Table 