Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 18:08     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
I like that everyone is open to the idea that they really don't know what happens after death.
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 17:21     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
Anonymous wrote:I haven't really talked about this IRL with people, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to put this out here.

My mom's atheism at the end of her life bothered me. A little background: she died this past fall in in-home hospice from cancer, and I was helping care for her. My family is a collection of spiritual folks, agnostics, secular Jews, and a few atheists. I fall into the "spiritual agnostic-ish secular Jew " category, I suppose. I talk to God a lot, and I decided I don't particularly care if it's all in my head. I think we go somewhere after we die. I hope we do.

My mom's atheism hurts because sometimes in quiet moments, I'll talk, if you will, to my grandparents, other relatives and loved ones that have come and gone. But my mom's insistence that she was really and truly just going back to dust hurts because it's as if permission to talk to her and hope she hears me somewhere out there was taken away. I did not challenge her on this. These were her beliefs. I loved her very much. This was not her intention. But it still hurts.


Talk to her! There's no way to know who was right, and there's a 50% chance you are. If you're right, wouldn't she want to hear from you?
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 17:01     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
Anonymous wrote:OP, I recently lost a relative who was a terrible, destructive person throughout his life. Like many people, I was horrified and revolted by him, and kept my distance from him.

Once he died, though, I felt an overwhelming conviction that he was genuinely sorry for what he'd done during his life and I've felt a connection to him that I've never felt before. He really wasn't responsible for his terrible actions - his parents had abused him so severely when he was a young child that by the time he reached the age of responsibility, he was simply not emotionally well enough to be held accountable. But the bad actions weren't really who he was.

All this is to say that I feel sure that your mother hasn't just "left" you, and that she's with you still. I know this sounds ridiculous, but a few years ago I would have thought my experiences since my relative's passing were completely unlikely, too.


If the thought that this person was sorry gives you closure then great. However, repentance after death is meaningless to the living.
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 16:27     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
Anonymous wrote:Just because she didn't believe in God doesn't mean that God Doesn't believe in her. Talk to her, she may be listening.
Yes, you don't have to accept what she believed. She could have been wrong, you know. You can believe what you want to believe.

~not a religious person and I don't think there is a god up there organizing our lives and deaths for us. I do think there is some kind of universal consciousness that we join when we die. All this is to say I'm probably more on your mom's side in terms of beliefs about the afterlife but I certainly don't think you have to accept what she thought if you don't want to.
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 16:26     Subject: Re:Something bothering me about my mom's death.
I'm an atheist, and I talk to dead friends and family members, and even pets. I don't actually think they can hear me, but I like to remember them when I do something they would have loved, or when I see shades of my relatives in my children.
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 16:23     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
Also, to the PP who doesn't think I was being particularly nice, my mom would have had some very choice words for you.
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 16:21     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
Thank you to every last one of you who has given me permission to talk to my mom.
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 16:19     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
Anonymous wrote:Op ~ you are making this about you.

Don't make it about you - and your mother letting *you* down.

That's not being very nice.


Yeah. I am. You know why? Because it's part of grieving when you lose a parent that you walk to death's door. And I didn't lay this on her when she was alive, because she did not need that peace disturbed.
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 16:11     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
Anonymous wrote:So do the atheist think some form of spirit lives on or else the kindness that someone had lives on because there is still kindness in people in the world?


I'm the PP who believes in the "conservation of energy" theory -- that our energy ("soul") is distinct from our mass (body). When we die, I believe our energy disperses and is renewed and reused in the environment in some way. It continues, and so the dead "live" on -- but not in the sense of reincarnation as another person. I think (hope!) our energy joins with plants, the ocean, the wind...

I truly feel my grandmother when I am in her garden (my mother lives in her home now, so I am there often). Grandma loved her roses, so I have no doubt some of her energy found its way back there.
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 16:09     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
Everything has energy. Even the dust that your mom became and even you. So, regardless of her form, some energy continues to exist.

Go on. Talk to her.
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 16:05     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
Anonymous wrote:So do the atheist think some form of spirit lives on or else the kindness that someone had lives on because there is still kindness in people in the world?


Atheists generally don't think in terms of spirits, or anything outside of thenatural world. Kindness exists because its a human trait. My deceased love ones will always exist in my heart. I often have fond memories of them. In the case of my parents -- fonder than when they were alive! I appreciate them and all the care and love they gave me as a child.

It's really pretty simple -- much less complicated than thinking of them in heaven somewhere waiting for me -- or maybe in hell.
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 15:49     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm an atheist, but hey, I might be wrong and still somehow survive my death. In that case, I hope any believers who loved me continue to talk to me! Even if I'm not 'around' my living self would have wanted them to be comforted by the idea of talking to me, so talk away.

PP, I don't think it's appropriate to tell OP she's not being very nice. Nice to whom, I wonder?


I'm a Christian and I love the phrase "survive my death !" Mind if I borrow that?!

I chuckled to myself as I wrote it.
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 15:45     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
So do the atheist think some form of spirit lives on or else the kindness that someone had lives on because there is still kindness in people in the world?
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 15:44     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
OP, I recently lost a relative who was a terrible, destructive person throughout his life. Like many people, I was horrified and revolted by him, and kept my distance from him.

Once he died, though, I felt an overwhelming conviction that he was genuinely sorry for what he'd done during his life and I've felt a connection to him that I've never felt before. He really wasn't responsible for his terrible actions - his parents had abused him so severely when he was a young child that by the time he reached the age of responsibility, he was simply not emotionally well enough to be held accountable. But the bad actions weren't really who he was.

All this is to say that I feel sure that your mother hasn't just "left" you, and that she's with you still. I know this sounds ridiculous, but a few years ago I would have thought my experiences since my relative's passing were completely unlikely, too.
Anonymous
Post 06/15/2015 15:43     Subject: Something bothering me about my mom's death.
You have your mom's memory, OP.