Death and I go back a long ways. My parents are both atheists and so god and heaven and all that jazz were never really on my horizon as any kind of comforting dream (I know these concepts, including heaven and hell, aren’t a comforting dream for many people and people don’t use the phrase "recovering Catholic" for nothing. But as an agnostic, terrified of death, I’ve always thought of believing in the afterlife as a nice thing. And this is about me, after all).

I remember being a little kid, say six or seven, and being worried about dying. I was pretty worried that a nuclear bomb would blow us all up. I used to lay in bed at night getting freaked out about dying. For my sixth through about tenth birthdays, when I still thought maybe there was a chance of birthday cake wishes coming true (you know those wishes you make when you blow out the candles), I always wished that I would become immortal. That’s how aware I was of death.

I even tried to be a catholic. My friend Mara was a catholic and she believed in heaven and hell and all that jazz and I thought, "hell, if she believes all that crap, I’m sure I can too. Then I won’t have to worry about this death thing any more I can just go to Heaven like everyone else." So I went to church with her for a while, and even attended catechism. But I just didn’t buy it. For someone who’s main fear is dying, a book that tells you, "look nobody really dies. The good people live forever in a nice place and the bad people go to hell" was just a little too convenient. I know there are plenty of smart people who believe in God with a capital G. And I think there probably are plenty of good reasons to believe in god. After all, nobody really knows how this whole shebang started. But when it comes to belief the bottom line is your own personal experience and my own personal experience has always looked me straight in the eye and said "Look girlie, you have it good now but one day your heart will stop, you will draw your last breath, and the world will go on with out you. Just as it did before you were born."

Now there are some people who seem perfectly fine with that fact. People like my boyfriend and perhaps a handful of others. And then there are people who just really don’t think about it. I was one of those people for a few years in college. I thought, "hell, I’ve worried about this death thing long enough. I think I’ll just forget about it and get on with my life." And so I did just that. I mean I’d think about my own death every now and again, but I would let such unpleasant thoughts slide away as I went on to other things like hauling my ass up rock walls or measuring impossibly small rare plants.

And then my mom died. Pretty hard to forget about death when one of the most important people in your life, who you happen to know was terrified of dying, dies. Yep. That’s what I call being between a rock and a hard place. You can ask Mitch, he lived with me for that year, I was in a hard place. When you’re an agnostic who feels like an atheist and death comes knocking around your neighborhood, there’s really no place to go that’s any fun to be.

So I started talking to people about death again. And I must say that that has also been pretty unsatisfying. So far I just haven’t found that many people that I could relate to when it comes to death. Most people either seem to have some belief system that takes the sting out of death (ranging from god, heaven, etc. to something as vague as "we’re all one spirit and we live on in that way"), or they just get along fine not thinking about it much. Both of these seem like fine ways to be, and as I said before I’m not trying to diss anyone’s belief system. I wouldn’t bet money on my belief system, it just happens to be the only one I’ve got.

So far the only people I’ve found that I can relate to about death are my friend Babra (who also gets that "I want to throw up" feeling when she thinks about death) and Spaulding Gray. So now I’m still thick in the throes of making my own kind of peace with the whole death thing. My death, other people’s deaths, the whole shebang. I can’t say I’m at all clear on how it will all turn out, or even how well it is going so far. I’ve gotten to the point where I can acknowledge that death is what gives life meaning (it’s all about contrasts baby!) and even that eternity would get pretty damn boring (reading Anne Rices’ vampire books helped with that). But still... I still don’t like the thought of my own non-existence. So what are you gonna do?

Babra recommended meditating on death. Actually picturing my own death and decay every day. She told me that is what Zen buddhists do and they do it over and over and over again until eventually the idea of death is no longer repugnant to them. It sounded like a good idea so I tried it. I got about six minutes in until I was so uncomfortable I had to go pet my dog for a half an hour until I felt better. That was a week ago. Maybe I’ll try again next week. Maybe by the end of my lifetime I’ll have built up to a half hour.

What can I say? I’m working on it. I’ll keep you posted.

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