After This: Continued...

I've opened the computer several times to continue writing about After This and something has stopped me every time. I kept asking myself why since I fell hard for this book. I realized, though, that it's because the topic of life after death seems too scary to share thoughts about on the world wide web. It's a vulnerable topic for many people - myself included- and I'm not sure that this is a space to share those feelings.

However, while After This does focus on different interpretations of life after death, it also focuses a lot on grief. I think by now, if you've been a reader for some time, you know that grief is something that I write about very openly. It's not something that I shy away from sharing honest thoughts about given that it has played such a major role in my life for the past year and a half. Every person's grief is unique and their own, but there were many times while reading this book that I was vehemently nodding, underlining, and saying "YES!" out loud. I wrote a little bit about Claire before, but she lost both of her parents before turning 30 and went on to lose some of her closest friends in life at a young age. As she continues to grieve the loss of these pillars in her life, Claire also navigates motherhood and explores how to explain death to her two young daughters.

After my dad died, I felt (and continue to feel) as though I had joined an exclusive club of grievers anonymous. It's not a club that I ever signed up to be a part of, and yet here I am- an active member of it. While I was reading After This I had a pack leader, someone who really got it and wanted to help put into words what I've been struggling with for a long time. While chances are slim to none that I'll ever meet Claire, I'm so thankful that her book fell into my lap.

I thought I'd share some of the parts from the book that have truly stuck with me.

"The word afterlife begins to take on new meaning as I listen to Mendel. I've never thought that much about the afterlife being part of this life. But he's right. My parents have continued to live on in many ways - not just through me, but through the things they created during their lives, the relationships they had with people, and the generosity and good deeds they bestowed on others."

"On the drive to Sedona we spoke at length about the lingering effects of grief. We both agreed that even after the immediate loss- the days of crying, the nights of insomnia, the feelings of isolation and loneliness- subsides, there is still the lingering curiosity about what all this means. Losing someone you love throws your whole life into question. What are we doing here? What is the point of all this? Why do some people die young or in horrific accidents or awful illnesses, and others live until they are ninety?"

"...I thought about the various ways I'd reacted to my parents' deaths. For many years I'd felt like a victim of my circumstances. I'd felt cheated and robbed of the kind of life I'd thought I was supposed to have. It took me a long time to stop moving through life as though I were constantly under attack, and to learn to focus on positive moments, to try to embrace the challenges life presented, and to learn from them..."

"When we lose someone we love, suddenly nothing fits anymore. Who we thought we were is now a jumbled mess of memories and hopes we once had, for a future that now looks completely different."

"We must learn to live in this world, because we have no other choice. What we do have a choice in is how we choose to live. We can remain gray and immobile in the wake of our losses or we can open ourselves up to the world, let the sunshine fall in, fill our surroundings with heaps of flowers, and know that we loved someone truly and deeply."

"Kubler-Koss is right. Rabbi Mendel is right. We don't have to know the answers. We don't need to know our exact path. All we have to do is make the right choices right here and now. We have to live a life we feel good about. We have to strive to live in the present moment, to teach our children and loves ones to make the world a better place, through our own examples of doing exactly that."


[I carry your heart with me, I carry it in my heart]