💀What Happens When We Die?💀A Poem + Thoughts💀
Good morning! It's a beautiful day. The Day of The Dead makes a lot of sense to me as a holiday. I mean, when you look at the numbers, the dead people of the world outnumber the living by a lot.
Sure, they aren't with us anymore, but they deserve to be remembered and honored, in some way more than zombie Facebook accounts.
What Happens When We Die?
What happens when we die?
Do we float up on a cloud,
Where friends and family wait for us,
All happy, well and proud?
Will we listen to the troubles of the world?
Will they be loud?
I'd like to know, what happens when we die?
What happens when we die?
Will we be reborn as snakes,
As we slither evermore,
Paying for our old mistakes?
Will we finally be happy?
Will we realize the stakes?
I wish I knew what happens when we die.
What happens when I die?
Will my soul transform to gas
That floats about the universe
With no substantial mass?
Will I then be the dewdrops
That will form upon the grass?
What happens, O what happens when we die?
Just some Thoughts about Death
In this last year, death has never been far away from my thoughts and my life. I wrote this poem about a year ago, when the unexpected loss of an old friend led me back to some really basic questions. Not only did he die young, but he died a hero, a marine helicopter pilot on a rescue mission. This young man was a success in life by anyone's measure.
This experience helped me realize that I am a very small child when it comes to understanding and accepting death. I hadn't been in touch with my friend the marine in years, and his death still landed on me heavily. I can only imagine what this loss must have felt like for his close friends and loved ones.
It's easy to think that we all have death figured out. It's easy to forget that death is the biggest mystery surrounding life.
When we're very young, we all tend to adopt belief systems surrounding death. Once we reach an understanding of death that is satisfactory, we cease the curiosity. We stop looking at it, and this may be a mistake.
If we accept that we've solved the mystery of death, it is harder to accept occurrences of death in our lives.
Embrace the mystery. Learn from tragedy. Live to the Fullest.
"The undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveler returns, puzzles the will..."
-William Shakespeare
Feliz dia de los Muertos!
Death is still one of those subjects that I can't deal with that well.. i too lost a friend last year... someone who was too young to die, a great musician who influenced my songwriting in ways that I could not even begin to describe... his kidneys gave out and just like that he was gone.
I wish i would have stayed in touch with him, i wish i would have just sent him a little msg on facebook, just to say hi more often.
Life is but a blink of an eye, i try to remember that as often as possible so that i always remember how lucky I am to to be alive.
Beautiful poem brother
Thanks for sharing, @meno, and so sorry to hear about your loss.
I keep telling my wife that we're only going to have to deal with death more as we get older. It's true for everyone. In my childhood, I only remember losing a couple of people. Now, each year the numbers grow. My grandma just passed a couple months ago at 94, leaving her 96-year-old husband of 70 years. They had celebrated their 70th anniversary about a week before she died. My grandpa remains, but almost all the people he's ever known are dead. That's heavy. Hopefully it gets easier in ways I don't yet understand.
So, somebody straight up stole this post and posted it as their own. I hate to bring this type of thing into the serious discussions we were having, but...
Here's the link to his imitation post so we can go downvote. I was quite shocked to have found this today.
https://steemit.com/poetry/@shivam15/what-happens-when-we-die-a-poem-thoughts
I think we all need to work together to find and root out abusers like this.
@shivam15 is the user. I haven't looked to closely at his other posts, but I have a reasonable suspicion that they are also stolen from real creators.
Death is a really difficult topic for me. I struggled to let go of relations and people for all my life. But On the other hand I also know about the liberation of letting go.
When it comes to my philosophy of death there is always this line of Alan Watts ringing in my head: "Imagine what it would be like to go to sleep and never wake up. And then imagine what it would be like to wake up after having never gone to sleep. This is when you were born."
I can think about that for decades.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful poem and your thoughts.
Yep. At least we generally get decades to think about it.
That Alan Watts quote pretty much blew my mind. I don't think I can imagine either of those things, and I'm usually pretty good at imagining.
Thank you so much for sharing; a great contribution!
Let's celebrate living together today!
I'm in MX right now; went into the Lost Loved ones' Bar and it was cool, with old pictures hanging and haunted statues.
Hear, hear!
That sounds pretty neat! Here in Crestone, people typically celebrate DOTD even more than Halloween. We also have monthly "death cafes," where folks get together and talk about death.
Actually, a lot of people come here for the end of their lives. The Crestone End of Life Project is the only place left in North America that does open-air cremations at dawn.
Thanks for reading!
I liked your poem, it illustrates probably the thoughts that everyone has about death in some way or another. I have had too any deaths around me, in my family and old and young friends and it isn't easy to accept. I know the Mexicans with their festival accept death more as a way to remember the lives of those gone before, and it's pretty colourful too. Ours all dark, dark clothes and mourning, as if it's too disrespectful to remember through colour. But surely it isn't. Life and colour go together and the memory of loved ones stay whetever colour you think of them in. The cultures that accept death in their lives are the ones that are more sensible about it. Thanks for your post.
You're absolutely right, thanks for sharing!
Color adds joy to everything, and why should we deprive ourselves of that joy in the face of immense sadness?
Shoo! sadness from our doors and welcome happiness! Keeep posting, this is a community.
On Halloween night an aquaintance's adult son was brutally murdered. He was 48 but that is way too young to die now a days. He was found dead on the ground, shot twice. I can't stop thinking about it. I can only try to imagine how my acquaintance feels. Something else related to this. I don't believe in the literal interpretation of Bible stories and I only go to church one day a year. I don't judge others and I don't care who you have sex with ,but I believe there must be some kind of God. There has to be some kind of intelligence behind all of this.There are a number of scientists who believe this too. If we can just show up on this little insignificant blue planet spinning around in space, then who is not to say that we may go somewhere else after we are done here. I have discovered that the people who are in your face atheists all have to see therapists and pay them good money. I don't ! I just say it is in God's hands.
Wow, that's a heartbreaking story. Thank you for sharing. I hope that your friend (and you) can find peace in such a horrible, impossible to understand tragedy.
Belief if something higher is crucial in learning acceptance. I'm a believer in many things.
When I'm in doubt, I try to have faith. I've noticed that atheists rely on doubt above all. I find that it's easier to believe, generally speaking. So yeah, atheists usually have a tough road.
Thank you for your contribution!
every one who is born, will die. and hope that we will be happy after death.we cant deny it.
That's true, but for some reason people still try to fight it.
"Rage, rage, against the dying of the light." -Dylan Thomas
they have limited knowledge,they see the world with different eyes.the truth is here in these words.we will die one day.
Feliz dia de los Muertos!
Interesting question, I just watched this Netflix original XO, EO or something I forget but was extremely interesting. The main antagonist basically captured a group of people and scientifically killed them over and over again to better understand this mystery.
That does sound pretty interesting. I'll find it and watch it.
Thanks for commenting!
Oh wow.
Thank you for your simple yet straight to the point poem.
It hit home with me.
Death has been on my mind this past year too.
It has become the catalyst for a lot of shiz in my own internal world to pop up , be analyzed and eradicated to only be left with the absolute essential only.
Death is abso-fucking-lutely amazing because it makes you realize you want to live!
Like your post A LOT!
Thank you so much for reading and for your kind words.
"Simple yet straight to the point" is a good description for most of my poems, actually.
At least we are living in Heaven already (;