EXISTENTIAL ANGST

I really thought I was done with the existential issues that we all wrestle with. As I approached my forties, I felt comfortable with mortality. I did not fear death - just a premature or traumatic death. I viewed death as a magical mystery that we all must fact, and felt comfortable knowing that someday, I would be...finished.

Now, not so much. In fact, when Christina left, I feel like she took my magical view of Life with her. Suddenly, the magic was gone and I was left with a fear of death. Now, I fear my own death, and I fear everyone else's death too. I fear it and I am angered by it. I resent mortality. One lifetime is not nearly long enough, and death is so final, so absolute, and so...unpredictable. There is no way to know when it will arrive. And worst of all, there is no way to confirm what happens...after.

It took so long after Christina died to fully comprehend that she would not be coming back. Even now, it doesn't seem quite real. And I find myself wondering where she is...IF she is. And I think of my grandmother - and how the untimely death of her mother kept her grieving her whole life. I understand now how a tragic death can cause a person to be forever changed. Like a pedal note, the pain lingers...

I don't think there is a day that goes by that I don't contemplate my own mortality. I wonder, with much sadness and anxiety, what will become of my belonging or how my children will cope without me. I think about my mom, as I see her aging, and fear the day she takes her last breath. Death. It's not right. It's not fair.

I am angry too that I cannot do what most people do and take comfort in unproven beliefs. I WANT to believe that I will see Christina again. I desperately WANT to believe that my grandmother was reunited with her mother when my grandmother died. I wish I could take comfort in thinking that when I die, I will be with those who have gone before me and that as time passes, my surviving loved ones will join me. But I can't. I just can't. I have no proof and it seems so unlikely. Why can't I just believe the stories? Why can't I take that leap of faith and then revel in the comfort and security that eternity can and will be blissful? I want to...but it escapes me. I just can't. Death is the end. That's what I've seen. Christina was here - and now she's not. She promised: She said that if it were possible to communicate from the other side, she would. And that has not happened. So, either that means that it is not possible to communicate from beyond death, or she has chosen to NOT communicate to me, or it could mean that she simply does not exist any more. Really, any of those potential reasons are equally likely I suppose. But the one that stands out to me is that Christina gone. She was here and now she is not. And that angers me.