Death - Just can't wrap my head around it

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First, the awful news: I found out today that a friend I've worked with in theater (named Adam) died two days ago in an early morning (i.e., very late night) house fire. All the news accounts I've seen say that he "died trying to save" the three others who were sleeping at the time, all of whom survived, and only one of whom was injured (in critical condition as of Wednesday evening from smoke inhalation). He was a really good actor and an awesome guy. I'm a typical aspie when it comes to meeting new people - I'm all awkward and nervous, don't know what to say - but he had such an easygoing way about him, and a really nice smile, he was so easy to talk to, and I never felt uncomfortable around him. He treated me like an old friend when we began working on the second show we did together, and that's how I felt about him.

Here's my hang-up: I know it's perfectly normal to hurt when someone dies, and the closer I felt to someone, the more it should hurt. I really liked Adam, and I was hoping I could work with him again. When he was around I always had someone fun to talk to, and when he was in a show I knew the show was gonna be a good one. I only met him about a year ago, which doesn't seem like a very long time, but whenever anyone dies, no matter how well I knew them or how close I was to them, I feel like I'm being ripped apart.

I fell to pieces and cried my eyes out when a great uncle, whom I hardly knew, died. The same thing happened at the funeral of one of my ex-wife's co-workers, whom I'd never even met. Her death was a particularly brutal rape/homicide perpetrated by one of her neighbors, and the nature of her death was probably part of why I felt so awful at her funeral. And I felt bad for my ex-wife too, losing a friend like that. But it was this woman's family really. their pain was so beyond anything I could understand. I could hardly breathe at that funeral.

I just can't wrap my head around this whole death thing. It's so permanent. It's so one-way. It's so inevitable. We know what happens to the body, but we can't know what happens to one's sense of self, one's awareness, one's identity. Nowhere in nature is information lost (one of the laws of physics that I'm not really sure I understand), but what happens to one's collection of memories? How is that not lost information? When someone dies, the people who loved that person are left with a pain so deep I can't describe it, though I've felt it a few times.

When I was in 5th grade, my best friend Henri died at age ten. He was beaten regularly by his dad. (He regularly came to school with black eyes and other bruises from those beatings. When he died, the gossip around town was that his dad had finally gone too far and killed him.) He was picked on by the kids at school - probably the only kid that got picked on more than I did. He was also routinely humiliated by the teachers who were absolutely clueless as to why he wasn't doing very well in school. What sense did Henri's existence make? He died of a sudden and rare viral infection in his lungs, so it's not like there are any lessons anyone could learn from how he died. He lived under such torture and he died without ever finding relief when he was just a little kid.

I think this must be one reason why so many people are religious, but I've been there, done that, and it made even less sense to me than death. Fooling myself into believing something I don't believe can't be the answer.

But every living thing dies. Squirrels die, and they don't make a big deal out of it. They just get on with it when it's their time. Do they know they're dying? Do they have some vague understanding what death is? Older squirrels have probably seen death in other squirrels. Maybe? Who can say for sure either way? So maybe it's not so bad? Maybe what's bad is the fear that it's coming? "Every breath leaves me one less to my last."

The human population has grown so rapidly over the last century that a huge portion (I saw a documentary that said half, but I have my doubts) of all humans who have ever lived are still alive right now. With so many people still living, are we really sure that death is inevitable? "In strange aeons even death may die."

Death is so incomprehensible! How are we humans supposed to deal with it? The more I think about it the crazier I feel. I can deal with pain, and I can deal with the fact that there are some things I can't know, but when a thing that I can't know causes me pain, I don't know what to do or think or anything! I'm trained as a scientist. I can make sense out of a lot of things, and if I can't, I understand there are ways to learn about things that can lead others to make sense out of them. But death defies all of that. A sense of being a living person also defies all of that, but I am aware of myself, and "I think; therefore I am."

Seriously, have you had to face the death of someone close to you? How did you cope without going crazy? (Or maybe you did go crazy?) Are you afraid of not existing when you die? How do you deal with that?

I'm not afraid of not existing. I'll always exist, just not in the current form I'm in now. I might be worm food, or worms, or a cloud of dust in the future. I just won't have the identity I have now.

In this realm of space-time, were slaves to causality. For something to be born, it has to die. For something to exist in one condition, it has to come from a pre-existing condition. I put my faith in the archetypes behind the aether that make material reality possible. I think the ultimate reality is love, because all things are intrinsically interconnected.

Consider a geometric pattern. If you looked at one of its parts, you wouldn't see it in its full context. You'd see a curved line, and it would just be confusing and seem arbitrary. However, zoom out to the full scope of the shape, and you'd see a perfect circle.

What's love? Its realization of an interconnectedness to another person or another thing. The ultimate reality is all things are interconnected, and there's no way to escape this reality. You may experience fear, hate, true rotten ugliness at certain levels of the bigger picture, but in the grand scheme, those are illusions. One who hates and belittles others and lives their little egoistic life is living an illusion, and they simply don't understand the greater reality that they're interconnected to those they hurt.

Love is truth, and its opposites are an illusion. If the illusion serves a purpose, its only to give more meaning to love.

I try to live a life more in harmony with love and truth than a life that's concurrent with an illusion. I think its the only thing you can do. In the grand scheme, I think it means something, because it reverences reality more. Your friends caring attitude really meant and means something, and he enriched peoples lives, including your own. The world needs more people like him, and the best we can do is live through that same spirit he lived though. In a way, I think people can live on through the influences they leave on people.

JNathanK, thanks for the post. I like where you're headed. Interconnectedness and love seem to be intrinsic to any grand scheme. I'd like to read your post a few more times and make sure I'm following you, and then maybe ask some questions if you're ok with that?

Thanks kojot. Adam will always be with me in so many ways. I don't think I can understand the bigger issues, but that much is comforting. It feels a lot more comforting than "He died heroically. You must be so proud!" Yes, he definitely died a hero by anyone's definition, but I didn't know the people he saved. The one person in that burning house that I cared about died. Thinking of him as a hero might make me feel just a little better in a year or maybe more, but today I couldn't care less. He left a strong impression on me as a person, and I will carry that piece of him forever, and I will take good care of it. Maybe that's all I can do?

I'm so sorry for your loss

There are two things I believe at the same time about death.
The first: The energy that makes me up will continue on. I am star stuff and all that. We don't so much die as get recycled.
The second: A couple of friends have died in the last few years and I seem to always have the same response. I'm not emotionally distraught, it's more like I'm stunned. Like the idea that the essence of the person has stopped yet time continues on is conundrum. Logically I understand, but it still feels like I'm working a puzzle. How could time continue without my friend being part of it?

I'm sorry for your loss.

You might try this: in a moment when you feel yourself missing Adam, where the Adam-shaped hole in your world hurts more than usual, stop and think about whether or not Adam would want you to feel this way on his account.

I'm sorry for your loss.

I believe that death is the passing of one life into the next. There is a larger invisible world located on top of this one. I believe this based on Carl Wickland's research in the books Thirty Years Amoung the Dead and The Gateway of Understanding. These books are about his many conversations with spirits through mediums. They give details about the afterlife and the role spirits play in the physical world. I've experimented with a pendulum dowsing chart before to communicate with spirits and I've found that it does work. I've gotten long messages from it in languages that I don't speak and translated them into English using Google Translations, and the messages made sense. It's kind of dangerous to use a pendulum dowing chart or a ouija board because you can get spirits attached to you like I did, and they can pull on your body. In some cases they can even get full control of your body. I've still been working on detaching a spirit from me after a month by taking cold showers, but after they leave they come back again because they're too attached to the physical world. If you really want to know for sure about continued existence after death, you can print out a pendulum dowsing chart, dangle a paper clip tied to a piece of string over it with your hand, and start talking. It's a dangerous thing to do, but it helps to eliminte the fear of death and doubts about the existence of spirits.

I'm also sorry about your loss.

Having dealt with the deaths of many of my favourite people over the past 4 years, I feel your pain. I've also had many friends die over the past 13 years as well since I've started going to Stepping Stones which is my clubhouse.