What do we know about dying anyway?

Yesterday Manolo died of thyroid cancer. He was in his forties. He leaves behind a lovely little girl named Mar who is about 7 years old. This little lady will never get the joy of growing up with the friendship and guidance of her father. She will never be given away at her wedding, waited for after a first date, taught to drive, given a first glass of beer by the man who gave her half her genes and who wil always form an intrinsic part of who she is. And she will not even be really aware of absence until later when she reflects and understands more the significance of death. At seven years old, it is clear that she can understand partially that her father is never coming back. But the permanence, the awful permanence of death is what takes a lifetime to learn.

Does any of us really understand death? We have a world crammed with philosophies and religions all trying to explain their version of what happens after we depart this earthly existence. Some tell us that wewill be reborn, adopt a new body, grow up, make mistakes, accumulate karma or slough it off and in the end look forward only to an unending repetition of the same cycle over and over again until we redeem our wretched souls until we are worthy of something less mundane and painful.

Others try to tell us that awaits us a paradise if only we abase and behave ourselves well enough in this one life that we have. They say the Saviour and the Saints await high above on a cloud of air to judge our misery and worth and allow us, or not, to enter. If permission is not granted, we wait for ever in limbo with the unchristened babies or plunge into the flames of the inferno of Hell to smolder forever in the sulphur air and repent at will our sins and transgressions.

Others say that there is nothing to look forward to, that we disintegrate like our body and never again exist. There is no good, no bad, no right, no wrong. There are no good grades to be achieved, no points to score and nothing to to guide us but our own morals and conscience.

Anyone could have it right. The point is that nobody knows. Not the miracle cases who travel through a dark tunnel towards the light, who hover abovetheir battered bodies and wave goodbye before being shocked in situ once again by a defibrillator or a shot of adrenaline. Not the preachers or priests or mullahs or shaman really know what happens when we die. We just…die. And everyone dies.

Ahuge part of being human is our unshakable faith in the future. Without knowing it we are all optimists because we believe that tomorrow exists. Regardless of the remorse or guilt or self-hatred that a depressive might feel, they too believe that tomorrow exists. Whether they think it worth it to live tomorrow is another story.

And so we go on living, reproducing, loving, grieving because that’s just how life is. Regardless of what creed you follow the actual acts of everyday life are mostly the same: we all take a shit in the morning, we all break wind if we eat too many beans, we all have crushes and fall in love, we all want to lay our head on a soft pillow at night and dream the night away in warmth and comfort.

I hope that little Mar will live her life fully and have all the joys and surprises that existence here on this earth entails. I hope that her father in his too-short life has left a legacy of beautiful young girl who will grow up cared for and loved and secure. Her mother, Luc