It has been two months since Chris died. In that time, I’ve done a lot of crying, grieving, and thinking. The water muse post of a couple days ago was sparked by a friend, and remembering the water muse I used to claim lived in my shower. Chris told me there was science behind that, and I looked it up. It’s really cool.
Like energy, water already exists in one form or another. It can’t be created from nothing. It can’t be destroyed. Consider the fact that the human body is more than 60% water. Blood is 92% water. Our brains and muscles are 75% water. Bones, believe it or not, are about 22% water. So if we are made of these things that can’t be destroyed, only changed, doesn’t that mean…something?
“We are stardust.” Chris and I had that discussion once. We spent a whole lot of time together in the car, in a gajillion waiting rooms, at home, and had some really great discussions. I keep thinking about the way he felt about death, that we don’t cease to exist but simply change form in some way. I dig the science behind it, and I can see where this primordial knowledge bound in energy and water might get translated into God and angles, ghosts and even zombies. In my last post, I said I was more a creature of whimsy than science, but I find that’s not actually true. I need science to back my whimsy. I might run with it, and turn a gathering of negative ions into a water spirit, but I can do that because I know the science behind it.
Blind faith. I can’t do it. I don’t claim to know any certain truth about whether or not there is an entity we call God/dess, but I am certain that there isn’t a single person, ever, who is capable of truly understanding the mysteries of our universe. Blind faith is required, and I just don’t have that in me. Whatever is out there, in here, is unfathomable. A nebulous force. A single entity. A collective consciousness. For all we know, our entire universe exists as a complex cell in some greater being’s hand. There are more synapses in a human brain than there are stars in the sky. Can you even fathom that? Then what makes anyone think they can contemplate the universe and come up with any one truth? That’s when the hands go over the ears, the eyes close, and “la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you!” comes out of mouths.
Before Chris died, I was content to admit I don’t know and never will. Modesty is for suckers, yes, but I’m not a fool either. I accept my human shortcomings and live life the best way I know how, trusting that whatever force is at work in the universe, sentient or not, isn’t going to hold my lack of understanding against me.
Since Chris died, more so than when Brian died, I have better come to understand why people cling to religion and God/dess and the blind faith necessary to accept. I can understand the need for that sort of peace. And I understand the very human need to believe in facts handed down by some higher authority. It lets us bypass the unknown, the unfathomable. “They” understand, and that’s enough for many. I wish it were enough for me. It’s not. There’s something to this “energy cannot be destroyed,” thing. I believe that it means my son moved on, became part of something bigger. I believe in the universe, that there is more to it all that meets the eye. I have also learned, truly learned, to never say never, and that even having answers doesn’t change the fact that I miss him. I miss his hugs. His smile. I even miss his chaos. Anything is better than the hole punched through my being.
This is all leading me to another thought, about love. I think I’ll let it marinate a while, see what comes of it.
Modesty Is For Suckers 