Communing with the Dead
Creating an afterlife as an atheist
My college boyfriend was diagnosed with a terminal illness when he was seven months old. His entire life, the knowledge of his impending death loomed over him. For the nearly six years we were together, there was some hope he could live to be in his 30s, but we both knew we were more likely to be visited by the Grim Reaper than an absolute miracle. During the day, I hoped for the best and read all the news about possible cures; at night I would often wake up and touch his chest to make sure he was still breathing. I prepared for his death from the first day we met.
We were both shocked when, about four years into our relationship, my best friend committed suicide. I had expected this best friend to take care of me when my boyfriend died; now, instead, my terminally ill boyfriend was taking care of me as I dealt with the feelings of betrayal and loss from losing a friend to a mental illness and suicide.
The boyfriend and I were both fans of Mary Roach, particularly her books Stiff and Spook, which are about what happens to the body after death and the research that has gone into proving an afterlife, respectively. After my best friend’s death,we made a pact: if life after death existed, whichever of us died first (knowing it would probably be him) would come back and let the other one know, however we could.
We broke up a year and a half later, for good, although we still kept in touch.
He passed away this past February.
Both of us were atheists, but had been steeped in the religious world of the afterlife, having been raised as Catholic (him) and Evangelical Christian (me). Growing up as a Christian, I had always been told that the one thing atheists missed the most was the sense of hope that Christians have after someone dies, knowing that the person’s soul continues on.
But now that I’m on the other side of that statement as an atheist, I know that isn’t true.
What I absolutely miss most is the physical presence of these people I’ve loved. I miss talking to them; I miss sharing things with them; I miss hearing their funny reactions to the mundane details of my life; I miss laughing at funny things in their lives; I miss having someone to write a letter to who will write a letter back. I miss feeling understood and loved. I miss their voices. I miss their faces.
Now, instead of the hope Christians get from knowing their loved ones are enjoying an afterlife (or perhaps the despair of knowing their loved ones are burning in hell), I feel a great sense of responsibility.
I understand now that my memory of these two is their afterlife. Talking about them and sharing stories about them keeps them alive. It’s my duty to memorialize them and their lives, and I get to share this experience with everyone else who knew and loved them.
I still wish sometimes to have some contact with them from beyond, to feel like they survive outside of my mind somewhere on a different plane. In spite of my skepticism, I find myself looking for signs. This is the first Halloween after the boyfriend’s death, and I have even asked him to tell me things if he’s there. There’s been no response; no books have flung themselves from the shelves; no computers have gone haywire; I haven’t even had dreams about him.
Last night at a Halloween party I found myself talking about our pact with some new friends. “He promised he’d come tell me if there was an afterlife,” I said. “There’s not. Just so you know.” It was a silly thing to say,and I didn’t mean to be as macabre or know-it-all as I sounded. I was trying to make a joke about death.
One of these new friends snapped a photo of me in my costume, and immediately I noticed an “orb” in the frame, shining brightly above my head, as if I had a thought bubble coming out of my blue wig. Lots of ghost hunters claim orbs like this are spirits or angels, and my friends teased me that I had a guardian angel hovering over me for that photo.
I know it’s most likely a speck of dust reflected in the flash, but part of me has also taken it as a sign: The afterlife exists as a thought bubble coming from my head. I can make my dead friends live again by remembering them. In that sense, that orb is most definitely a spirit hovering over me — a reminder of my duty to keep the dead alive.
