Wednesday 21 March 2001

Pic of the day: The building is empty, its walls breaking apart, and no one repairs it. It has served its purpose well enough in its time.

Goodbye to nothing

It was a rather ordinary day, except for the evening. At 17:30 (5:30PM) we were to gather in a small chapel room to bid goodbye to my mother. This was the closest family only, which still happens to fill a goodly sized room, thanks to the reproductive capabilities of my brothers (and in particular their wives). Somewhat unexpectedly, my father was delayed by about 20 minutes, because his clock had suddenly started to lag. It did not matter much, though. There wasn't much to do. The actual burial is tomorrow. I don't know exactly what the priest had expected. He read aloud a psalm of King David (guess which), and said some nice words about King David. After this most of the family left before the lid was taken off the coffin.

The undertakers had done a nice enough job. The corpse was beautifully preserved, for the time being. Still, that was what it was. She wasn't there. I found it disconcerting that the priest, a should-be knowing man in the ways of spiritual things, seemed to think my mother was there. She's not. She's gone. The body remains on Earth, but I would like to think that the spirit remains with God. It certainly wasn't there with us.

I did not think of her as a body when she was alive. I'm certainly not going to start now.

***

That is not to say that I pursue a strict dualist philosophy. I believe that body and soul are delicately interwoven in life, so no one can tell for sure where one ends and the other begins. But the breath of life leaves a body (and soul) and what is left is an old tool, a clothing, a snail's shell.

I believe that to have a body is no shame and certainly no sin, but a good and natural thing. The hope of my religion is the resurrection of the dead, though I would not be surprised if this (like so many other prophesies) will be fulfilled by some hitherto unknown technology. Perhaps there will be advertisements in the news, similar to what it is today when people die. "Our beloved mother (etc etc) was resurrected today" would be nice. I'm not so sure whether those who went home to God will be described as coming back from God ... but "was hastily brought back" sounds cool.

Right now these things are a matter of faith. But I consider it a matter of fact that the corpse is not the person. Really. It was lifelike, but in the way a wax statue is lifelike. The real person was gone. That's how it goes.

***

The poor priest, a young looking one, presumably did his best. Neither of my parents were regular fixtures of the church, so he did not have the best starting point. I was tempted to bless him with the words, "may the State richly reward you" (for this is the State-owned public church - think public school, public hospitals etc and we also have a public church for those who don't choose anything else).

But the priest just did not have the best starting point, since the guest of honor was long gone. He may get used to it, in time. And tomorrow is the funeral.