Mortality and My Dog Scrappy

Don't you hate those moments when you find yourself dwindling in thoughts of what it really means to be mortal? That at some point and time, your existence will come to and end. Nothing more. All of this gone, and you won't even know it because there won't be any knowing left. I don't believe in a god and a heaven, so I don't have these thought of an ever after. I know such thoughts may bring great comfort to some in their beliefs, but that's what it's for - comfort and not much more. It's the blinders to wear to not really have to think about it or give it too much thought because, really, there ain't much to think about. For me, dead is dead is dead. There is no ever after, there is no meeting up later. Dead is done.

This doesn't mean, however, that I can't and don't respect others' beliefs in god(s), in an afterlife. No, to the contrary. That's fine. That's what works for them and what they want and need. And I do pray. How contradictory is that? Well, not really. I pray to the god(s) that others believe in, in my effort to provide them the comfort they need and desire. For instance, the hurricanes and earthquakes. I don't believe in any god for me, but I will say a prayer and send it into the universe to the god in which those people affected may believe. I don't have a problem talking to other people's god(s), I just don't want or need to talk to their god for me.

When I talk to my parents on the phone, and they say, "God bless you." I say, "Thank you, God bless you." It's not me I'm asking any god to bless, but them. And if they want to talk to their god and offer a blessing, that's their relationship with god, not mine. And when I say it back, I simply mean to step into their belief system for a moment and ask their god to bless them. Still, not about me - that's about them.

When I have a friend I know is religious, I tell them I will pray for them if they are in need, or light a candle for them - which is some sort of pyrotechnic prayer offering. How about the idea of sending positive energy into the universe? Sure, okay, there's that, too. That if you want to call it "god" you can, but it's really just directed energies. The movie Powder was a great example of this concept of energies - at the end, when he...well, I can't give it away, but suffice it to say, it certainly is my perspective of what happens to us when we're gone. Re-emission. We are energy, recycled, recirculated into the universe. Which means from the beginning of time, we are all one - all composites of previous energies having come before us. Sure, why not?

The bottom line is that I don't get hung up on it has to be this, or it has to be that. I'm open to considering possibilities, and open to knowing there can be many, many possibilities all on one planet. That is what we are, isn't it?

So, how does the dog figure into this? Well, the thoughts came to me today as I was driving my dog to a dog park so he could go play. It just hit me as I drove the car and looked out across the harvested fields and thinning fall tree lines in the distance. Under overcast fall skies, I looked at my husband next to me, to my dog in the back seat, and thought, "This is my life. This is all there is. Someday, it will all stop. All be gone. All be done." And as my chest seemed to tighten at the thought of it, and my heart beat faster, I reached out my hand and placed it on Casey's leg. I held it tightly for a moment and felt the anxious energy from my core release and funnel itself out, through my hand, into his leg. He sat calmly, looking out the window at the same serene fall day. "This is now," I told myself. "Nothing matters more than just - this." And I grew calm. And I breathed. And I took my dog to the park.