Faith

The question of the afterlife continues to be a struggle for me. Where Kirk is, if he is, what he is, whether he is aware of us. At first, it was a constant struggle – seemingly every minute of every day. The need for a “sign” or a sense of his presence consumed me. I want so much for there to be something after death – some state in which he is not fully gone, through which we are still connected. My faith in this is stronger at times, then weakens, then strengthens again. Faith is not something I struggled with before I lost him – the topics about which I had remaining questions were just not burning issues for me. But now, it’s all different.

There is a book I read every day – I have referenced it before on this site. It is called “Healing After Loss – Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief” by Martha Whitmore Hickman. This book is very helpful and thought-provoking for me, and often references the heart of what I am feeling and questioning about the afterlife (and other topics). It does not offer answers – just thoughts. Here are some quotes from the book that are so true of what I go through with regard to this topic. (NOTE: I have tried to use these quotes correctly, and to give credit where it is due. I trust that Ms. Hickman will not be too hard on me if I don’t know the proper way of crediting her, and those she quotes in her book. Please note that anywhere I type “…” it means I have skipped some text that is not relevant to my point, and also that all italics are added by me. Hopefully this will keep any lawyers happy.)

“Faith is a way of waiting – never quite knowing, never quite hearing or seeing, because in the land of the darkness we are all but a little lost. There is doubt hard on the heels of every belief, fear hard on the heels of every hope.” (Frederick Buechner)

And also, from Martha Whitmore Hickman – “we can never really be sure for long that the particulars of our faith, our hope, are what we would like to believe they are…Because as sunshine follows rain follows sunshine, faith, as it waits, moves from confidence into doubt into confidence again…And every once in a while some minor miracle of insight and confidence, some serendipity with no explanation other than grace, renews us, and we are willing to relinquish our need to know the details. Instead, we trust that all shall be well.”

This is exactly what is happening with me – I cycle between quiet belief in something I have no proof of, and an urgent need for observations, details, evidence. Faith is not easy for the analytical, empirical evidence-oriented person that I am. Please know that I when I talk about “faith” I never mean God. I am just referring to the ability to believe in something in the absence of any evidence.

Slowly, though, I feel myself moving toward more moments where I believe than moments where I question. I am being helped in this effort by some things that are not hard evidence, but that do carry weight with me.

One of the things that has helped me is a conversation I had with my sister Lauren a few weeks ago. We were talking about the afterlife, and she told me that one of the things she thinks about is that there is so much in our world that we do not understand. We talked about the fact that there are many phenomena that humans have yet to figure out, and the fact that we haven’t figured them out or explained them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Since that conversation I have thought a lot about the fact that I have always believed that there are many things we can’t experience with our five senses, but still likely exist. For example, we haven’t yet found life in outer space, but I firmly believe it must be out there – it is too illogical to think that we happen to live on the only planet that sustains any form of life.

Another thing that gives me hope is that I have learned that Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, an expert on death, believed based on her observations that there is an afterlife. The fact that a woman who was a scientist at heart, and who spent many many hours with people who were on the verge of death, believed in the afterlife carries some weight with me. I am trying to learn more about what she based her belief on, but for now, this also points me toward faith.

And finally, most importantly, there is Kirk. I have been waiting and waiting for him to somehow prove to me that he still exists. A “sign,” a ghost, a voice that answers when I talk to him, a spiritual feeling inside me – SOMETHING - anything. But I have been thinking lately that this is unfair to him. What a big burden I am putting on him! He has cared for me for so many years, always making sure I have what I need and want in every way. Is that why I still expect him to help me? I don’t know, but I am starting to realize that it is too much to expect. I'm now starting to think it is up to me to figure out what I believe, rather than up to him to convince me.

Still, I kept expecting something from him. But recently, it came to me that maybe I am looking in the wrong place for what he can give me in the way of assurance. I am looking in the “now” for the sign, the proof. The truth is, I think maybe he gave it to me long before he died.

To understand the significance of what I am about to tell you, you have to really understand Kirk and who he was. He was never prone to wild theories, or speculation, or fantasy. Like me, he liked data and personal observation – trust and faith were not characteristics he was long on. He was completely grounded in reality. Keep this in mind as I tell you this story.

A few years ago, Kirk and I went out to a restaurant back home. Once we were seated, our server came over, and he realized that she was a woman who had known his parents when he was a child. He told her who he was and they chatted for a minute, then she left to get our drinks. After she left, he told me that she and her family had moved into a house after he and his family had moved out of it. He told me it was the house in which he had seen “the lady.”

I knew right away what he was talking about - it was a story he had told me before. The house was an older home, and he had lived there when he was pretty young. His Mom and Dad would know for sure, but I’m guessing he was perhaps somewhere between 5 and 7 at the time. In a certain room of that house, he would sometimes see a woman – no one he knew (whenever he talked about this he always called her “the lady”). I believe he said his sister also saw the woman in that same room sometimes. He told his parents, but they never saw the woman, and I am sure dismissed his comments as imagination. He also says that in that house, he would sometimes see a black and white cat in the pantry. There was a barn in back of the house with barn cats in it, and whenever he saw the cat in the pantry he thought it was one of the barn cats, who were not allowed in the house. When he saw it he would try to catch it, because he thought his dad would be mad if he came home and found one of the barn cats in the house. He would try over and over to catch the cat, but could never catch it – to his recollection, the cat would get away from him, and then disappear.

Understand that this is not a story he told to anyone except me. He was very sure about what he saw, but would never risk looking silly to others. I don't think he ever used the word "ghost" when talking about it, but that is definitely what he believed he saw. I have to admit that although I didn’t totally dismiss what he told me, I did think that he was a pretty young kid when it happened and it could have been imagination.

At any rate, we had a good dinner, and by the time we were done eating, the restaurant was quiet. The server didn’t have any other tables, so she sat down and visited with us. Finally, she said with some hesitance that she wanted to ask him something. She asked him if he had ever seen “a woman” when he lived in the house – had he ever seen something that could be a ghost. He was stunned. He finally said “yes, I did.” She said that when she moved into the house, her children (who Kirk did not know) were pretty young, and that they would insist to her that they saw a woman in one of the rooms in the house. Like Kirk's parents, she never saw the woman, but her kids, who were now adults, continued to maintain that they were sure they saw a ghost in that room. Kirk asked her where the kids would see the woman, and she named the room (I think it was an upstairs bedroom) and he said that was definitely the right room. He asked her about the cat, but she had no recollection of her kids seeing a cat.

From that day forward, I believed that he did actually see something. I had forgotten about this until recently, and it now occurs to me that through Kirk I have indeed received some evidence of things we do not know or understand – I got it from him a long time ago in the form of his own experience.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, life in outer space and other undiscovered phenomena, and Kirk’s “lady.” That’s the foundation on which I am building some faith. And also, if I am honest, pure desire – the desire to believe that he is not fully gone, that we are still connected by more than love and my memory, and that I will “see him” again someday.