Posted by:
Bereaved
(
)
Date: October 14, 2019 02:28AM
Unlike what the Mormons believe, we ALL will be there, together, wherever and whatever Heaven is. No one escapes death. This knowledge binds us together.
Isn't it just like the Mormons to separate themselves into an exclusive, stratified heaven--better than anyone else's heaven, of course. The Mormon heaven has social climbing, travel and visitation restrictinons, Black slaves (as JS had sealed to him) and women in an eternally submissive position under the New and Everlasting Covenant of polygamy! I never believed in the Mormon idea of Heaven, fortunately, but my kids did, for a little while, when they were taught in Primary that because their father and I had not been married in the temple, our family would wander alone for eternity, and "pass by each other as strangers" in the afterlife. Threatening someone with bad stuff happening after they die--IMO, that's playing dirty! It's abusive!
I thought I was going to die a sudden, violent death, three times. The first time, I was 14, and in the Carribean, and my brother and I decided to slide down a steep, slanted sea cliff covered with slippery moss, and I went first. It was much slicker than I had anticipated, and I was falling down the drop very fast, towards the sharp rocks and crashing waves below. Suddenly, I felt an odd feeling of peace, like I was letting go of my life, and trusting that everything would be fine. Suddenly, at the very end, where the waves crashed against the cliff, there was thick seaweed growing, and it was thick and coarse enough to stop my fall.
I actually did die, in my second experience. My wife-beater ex-husband had been beating me, and he had broken my jaw and injured my back, but the fear was worse than the pain. I tried to stop him, but he kept at it, and threw me onto the floor, and strangled me. As I stopped breathing, I honestly thought I was being murdered, right then and there. I saw his horrible face above me, and thought, "This is death. I would rather die than live with this monster." Like that other time, I peacefully let go of my life, and the pain stopped, and everything went black. This time, I felt more like I welcomed death. I felt my soul leaving my body, when I was unconscious. Even while unconscious, I looked down and saw myself as I floated away. Was that perhaps a dream? Can one dream while unconscious? One can hear, when in a coma.... I wanted to live, but I felt that being removed from my self like that was so traumatic, that I would never recover from that. Now, years later, I sometimes feel that part of me did die. I don't know how long I was unconscious, and I wasn't aware of my breath returning. I woke up on the floor, alone, and all I could think about was getting out the door. I had to walk slowly, because of my back, and I was barefoot. I knew that if he caught me, I would be beaten again, so I hid in the bushes, along people's yards, away from the streets, and went to the house of some friends, who my husband didn't know about, and who lived far enough away, that we would all be fairly safe. I did not feel safe going to the local Provo police, because they didn't care about battered women. My husband would have tracked me down at a hospital or at my relatives' house, and I didn't want to endanger anyone. My friends bought me an airplane ticket home, loaned me a coat and some shoes, and drove me to the airport, and stayed with me until the plane took off. (I paid them back, and returned the clothes, after I got home.) My jaw was so badly shattered, that I had to have many surgeries over the years. The ringing in my ears never went away, and I have bouts of vertigo.
The problem is, that I re-live that moment over and over again in a recurring nightmare, as part of the PTSD I have. It's like dying a hundred deaths. Therapy has helped a great deal!
I think the process of dying makes us more willing to let go, and leave this life. Death can be a welcome end to pain.
Nothing makes death less sad. Nothing--not even believing in Heaven--makes you miss our beloved dead any less. I miss my parents every day. They exist only in my thoughts and memories, in my world. I don't know what place they have in my TBM siblings' worlds.