I borrow my title from lines spoken by Shakespeare’s Hamlet, who has just figured out that his uncle murdered his father. Shakespeare wrote Hamlet in 1601. In spite of the great expanse of human history and speculation, we still do not understand the relationship between what we call “life” and what we call “death.” Humans have, of course, developed a slew of religions that attempt to explain the great mystery, and while all religions (at least those I know of) promise eternal life for believers, we have no evidence that would stand up to scientific investigation.
People have typically taken eternal life on faith, assuming that those who die will receive their “just deserts,” with those who were good (or had the right beliefs) going to heaven, and those who were bad (or failed to believe the right things) going to hell. Without that concept we would not have most English literature and, I suspect, most of the world’s literature as well. It’s easy to see why this is so. We have evidence of both life and death. We know that animals (including humans) typically do what they can to avoid (or at least delay) death. The only thing worse than death is “dishonor.” A common saying in the military, for example, is death before dishonor.
Most people (in all cultures, I would guess) become aware of death at a fairly early age. While my dad was overseas in WWII, my mom and I lived with her parents. Although I didn’t know it at the time, my grandfather was dying of spinal cancer. My memory of him consists of his reading the comic strips in the Sunday paper to me. I have no memory of his death or funeral. The first death I am aware of was that of my family dog, who was run over by a car. She died on our front lawn. I was about 3 and still remember that, but I have no sense that I understood what had actually happened. The next significant death for me was also a pet, the doberman I grew up with. I was 13 when he died. My entire family cried for a week. I was in my early 20s when my dad’s brother died of this third heart attack. I was away in college and didn’t attend his funeral.
I was among those in college who marched for Civil Rights and against our participation in the Vietnam War. And then I was in the Army and was sent to Long Binh Vietnam. Although I did not see combat, I was stationed where I routinely saw helicopters returning from the field carrying dead and wounded. And then I was back in college, living a privileged, sheltered life. I remained in the sheltered halls of academe until I retired. As I got older, my aging colleagues were passing away with increasing regularity, and I was reminded of a childhood song The Hearse Goes By.
My perception of the relationship between life and death has been shaped by my dreams. I went from Michigan to California to be with my father when my mother was dying. I was sleeping in my old bed in what had been my room in the house I grew up in. My mother was in a coma and not expected to live when she came to me in a dream. She told me that she was going to die and asked me to help my father cope. I consider it a “message” dream, one that seemed more “real” than “dream-like.”
My second dream like that happened after the death of my co-author for most of my academic writings, Bernadine Branchaw. A few days after she had died, she came to me in a dream looking young and healthy. She told me that she was “just fine.”
There is no way, of course, to substantiate the content of either of my stories. They could, after all, be a product of wishful thinking. We want life to be eternal, and our brain goes about showing us that’s the case. There’s no proof either way. My experiences while working with Debra have, of course, also shaped my sense of things. The first time I was on her table for a Healing Touch session, she said, “You killed me in a previous life.” I had an instant vision of when and where that happened. In subsequent sessions, I have had visions of other times and places we shared, both good and bad.
The story about the death of the comedian, Sam Kinison, has resonated with me ever since I first heard it. At his death scene, following a head-on collision, Kinison was observed having a conversation with an unseen individual. Here is what was reported by someone at the scene:
Kinison appeared to have suffered no serious injuries, but within minutes he suddenly said to no one in particular, “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.” LaBove later said, “it was as if he was having a conversation, talking to someone else, some unseen person.” Then there was a pause as if Kinison was listening to the other person speak. Then he asked “But why?” and after another pause LaBove heard him clearly say: “Okay, okay, okay.’ LaBove said, “The last ‘okay’ was so soft and at peace … Whatever voice was talking to him gave him the right answer and he just relaxed with it. He said it so sweet, like he was talking to someone he loved.”[24] Kinison then lost consciousness. Efforts to resuscitate him failed.
For the Wikipedia article, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Kinison
Basically, I agree with the poet John Keats, who said, Life is a vale of soul-making.At best, we see through the glass darkly. And how could it be otherwise? If, as I suspect, we are in the process of learning how best to live, we need to “school” our intelligence for it to develop at the soul-level.