Death Insurance

I haven't been feeling the most inspired lately, so apologies for not posting as frequently this week. But the high of buying a house is now morphing into the incredible task of filling out mounds of paperwork and undoubtedly signing my life away. Literally. I had to sign up for life insurance.

It's weird, signing up for life insurance. Weird because suddenly you're forced to imagine a scenario - your life without you. How odd.

Death is a weird thing. I've been watching Six Feet Under, trying to get caught up by watching from the beginning. It's a great concept for a show, because death touches people in such different ways. Some people never deal with the grief, some can't seem to feel anything but the grief and they get lost in it.

But from a spiritual vantage point, death is only traumatic for those who are left behind to feel the absence.  Of course, having the knowledge that death is not really the end of consciousness helps with the grief process. Most of us 'believers' (note that I use the term even though I would never say I believe in the afterlife because I know it exists) have an easier time coping with loss because we continue to have a relationship with the departed long after they die. We talk to them, feel them, dream about them, hear their voice in our heads, smile when we see something they would have liked or laugh at jokes we remember them telling.

I always hated it when people would tell me someone would live on "in your heart". That was always too abstract for me - and too painful. They were still gone. Distilled into nothing but a memory.

But after my experiences, I've come to understand that saying to be more about the connection we retain to the spirits of passed loved ones. The connection is love, it is what keeps us dialed into their frequency, able to maintain contact. Our love for them keeps the channel open, so to speak, so that they may continue to watch over us, interact with us (in subtle ways) and guide us when need be.

This doesn't take away from our sense of loss - because we will continue to miss their physical self. We'll miss their laugh or their smile or their hugs... that's inevitable. We'll miss them at weird times, randomly triggered nostalgias. But we live on... and so do they.

So where does all this lead me? I'm filling out my details, insuring my life. Ironic that they don't call it death insurance, which is what it is. But I'm guessing it would creep people out too much.