
Death. The inescapable, inevitable certainty of life.
It is a chance occurrence that can happen at any second of our lives, yet everyday we walk around seemingly unconscious of it lingering above our heads.
Nearly a week ago I boarded a plane bound for my home San Francisco. The flight was 5.5 hours and my entire body quaked with intense anxiety. Such intense fear was a suddenly arising mental barrier that I never had any issues with before until I became aware of my own vulnerability.
An avid science reader for years, I have carefully followed the developments in the investigation in the June 1, 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447 as they were always published in several of my favorite science publications over the past few years. For me, this incident was an unsolved mystery slowly unraveling article by article. Reading the developments were always insightful and fascinating, yet certain troubling questions gripped me tightly: what did the passengers experience the moments before it was all over? Did they suffer? What did they see when the Airbus A330 hit the water and shattered? At what point did they cross from this life into the other and what did they experience in that process? I was angry for them because I felt that they were cheated. Most of them probably boarded that flight in Rio De Janeiro without a fear in mind. Most of them probably sat down in their seats and calmly opened a magazine, popped in their earphones and fell asleep. They probably never suspected boarding Flight 447 would be their ultimate demise.
The day before I flew out of San Francisco on December 18th 2011, I finally discovered (to my avail) an article in the magazine Popular Mechanics with the black box transcript of the final moments of Flight 447 and I was horrified to read it. Nevertheless, this transcript made me understand the importance and the impact of the human focus-driven approach of the stories in “50 Women”. The reason for this is I have read so many articles on the mechanics of the crash yet none of them affected me like reading the actual words of confusion, terror and anguish of the three pilots on the flight deck that night. The transcript personalized the tragedy, especially when I read the chilling last phrase of pilot Roberts: “Damn it, we’re going to crash…this can’t be happening!”
In reading this I wondered what he was feeling and thinking in that moment- the instance he came to the shocking realization that he was going to die. Did he experience anger, fear… love?
With this in my mind I have since developed anxiety when flying. I used to love airplanes as a child and was always fascinated with them but for some reason in recent months this has reversed to the point where flying has become a nightmare for me. Perhaps its the jerky turbulence that sends my heart crashing out of my chest. Perhaps it’s the thought that my life is ultimately in the pilot’s hands and that I have no control over the situation should something go terribly wrong. Perhaps it’s also my more extensive knowledge of the mechanical function of planes and their different models and features that cause my anxiety. This new fear has risen in my life as a foe to vanquish as I will be flying again en route to the United Nations 56th Annual Commission on the Status of Women session in February 2012. I must find a way to process this before then. The women of the world need me to be there, to be their voice.
When I was younger I never considered death. I never thought about it or even imagined the day, date and time my own last breath would be. I thought I was invincible.
I was wrong.
I had many difficult years that plagued my childhood and I used to behave as though my life did not matter. Yet after spending the last 2.5 years interviewing women who, in certain cases, had survived unimaginably adverse situations and experiencing personally what joy and contentment life really holds, I began to question the concept of death.
I realize after my adventure into various religious and spiritual beliefs that death has only become more and more confusing to me. It seemed that it was easier to conceive when the only view of an afterlife I possessed was the quintessential model of St. Matthew standing at the gates of heaven handed to me by the Catholic church. It was one explanation simple enough and comfortable enough for me to readily accept and understand.
Not anymore. I cannot accept this anymore because I have become inundated with so many other perspectives and beliefs. Now I am stuck with the existential question of which one is actually correct? Are any of them correct? Is there really a gate? Is there really a heaven and a hell? Are all the prophets really as great as we think they are? What is this thing called “God”?
“50 Women” is my search for God, for the Universe. It is my search for why we choose to hold on to this life and why we choose to fight so strongly when we feel it is threatened. What made these women hold on? How do they currently thrive after so much devastation in their lives and function normally?
After many late nights of deep thought, pondering and exploring different religions and their views I realized it only left me more confused about life and death. More importantly it left me with one stabbing, burning question in my heart and mind: Am I that strong? Can I be as strong as these women?
I have overcome some quite adverse situations in my past, but I feel they are minimal compared to the things many of the women in “50 Women” have experienced. Realizing this left me so weak compared to them all. But I need not forget- their strength is my strength.
In the process of exploring these concepts, I recently began to develop an irrational fear of death and dying. There was something so haunting about death, so permanent and unalterable that troubled me. I began to feel somewhat cheated concerning human existence. What are we doing here on this planet earth, swirling around a star in a sea of stars and planets known as the universe? What is the purpose of it all? By far, my most troubling question is: Where do we go after we die? What do we see? Are we simply reincarnated and born again or do we enter another universe or other dimension. It made me angry to think that we are here and we don’t have any definite answer or indication of what is beyond this life. Why don’t we know? My brain has never been satisfied with mysteries. I have to investigate them, to understand them and discover an explanation. Yet for death, no such explanation exists and I will have to come to terms with this fact.
I just spent a two week period managing anxiety attacks which suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I have never experienced anything like this before in terms of my health. At first I was so taken aback by their powerful bodily takeover that I could not think clearly enough to analyze them. I am a very active person and the presence of such intense, seemingly unmanifested anxiety was frightening and confidence shaking. Once I harnessed them, I realized that they came upon me because I became conscious of my own vulnerability to death when previously my own narcissism and vices blocked my acknowledgement. I was plagued with the thoughts that I could simply go to sleep one night and then never wake up. That it could all be over any second. It is very disconcerting to realize this and to become so consciously aware of this. It was this notion that turned my otherwise calm plane ride into a horrific experience. In healing, I began to search back through the stories of the women I interviewed for answers. Surely, these women would be able to tell me something to calm my anxiety over such matters.
Sure enough, in one of them, I found my peace concerning death. The answer came thorough the story of boona Cheema (India).
Here is an excerpt from her experience with death after her son’s suicide:
I have to say that one of the most eye-opening experiences in my life was my son’s death.
My son died in September which was the same month he was born. He came and went full circle. My son died when he was 33. He committed suicide in 2004. He had lived his life to the fullest and then he just could not see a way out of his depression and his sadness. He really could not see a way through. He felt that life was never going to be different than it was at that point. He went through medications and counseling but none of it was working. He was so heartbroken that he just really could not see anything else…
…The next morning I found him. I remember this day very vividly: I called him around 12 o’clock and then I found him dead around 8:30 in the morning. It was intense. It was a very intense spiritual experience for me. I felt that I walked with his soul to whatever that other side was and is. It was beautiful! We went through a dark blue door that opened into gold light and then we were just in the gold light and I was back. His breath was not in his body at that point. I think his soul was still there because he had just died around 6 o’clock in the morning. When I was thrown back from that light, I realized that hundreds and thousands of children had just died in that same moment and that my grief was a universal grief. I realized I could not possibly personalize my grief or his death; that in a way that would be too selfish. He was not like that, he would have wanted to be seen as part of a bigger pain where there was a bigger experience because he did not live small little experiences. In fact, being bi polar he lived grandiose ones. In that moment, he was very wonderful and protective. He was taking me into that moment and then sending me back. The next feeling that I got was that I was just one of the grieving mothers universally. There were all these perished children and I was just another one of their grieving mothers crying. We were having an individual experience but being able to see other souls that were experiencing the same thing in that moment. This was so spiritual and so uplifting. I got to see this truth and I thank him everyday for that. Individual relationships holding so much pain, sorrow, and grief are taken so personally. I believe this is selfish because we don’t think about other people. We don’t think about the hardship and all that stuff that is happening to everyone. So I am in a bigger place since then, especially when it comes to grieving. I found a real solidarity in grief.
My son hung himself. He did it in a way that was not as threatening as he could have. I think his pain was bigger than the physical pain of death. Depression can be that painful. When you live with that depression and you know you’re dead when you are not, then I guess that’s a different relationship with death. For some people, that is the only answer and that is why I think life is overrated in a lot of ways. I think people just cling to it when they should just let go. For some people, they would be more at peace this way. You cannot fight against the flow of things and for some people they fight too hard in the end…
…I feel that he has been at peace for a long time. He was not the type that hangs on. I feel him and dream about him often. I feel his essence but I dream more about him sitting next to my father. They were kindred spirit…
What does this tell me? That everything is really universal. That the truth I have uncovered through the process of this is real: suffering and grief are relative yet utterly intimate and oddly shared. That death is a beautiful transition, a chance for peace and not an occurrence to be feared. I will never have all the answers to this equation, but there is undoubtedly something out there for us to retreat to. Even the most advanced theoretical physicists would agree with me. The first law of thermodynamics dictates: “energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed”. Does this then apply to the energy we often refer to as the “soul”? When it comes to these issues, my brain is in constant battle between the realm of logic and the realm of spiritual faith and belief.
I have no way of knowing when I will leave this world or how. As long as it’s after “50 Women” is published, this is all that matters to me. As long as I have performed the responsibility or duty I am here to perform during my lifetime, then I can accept this. I pray I will have a long healthy life.
The turbulence will always be part of flying and death with always be a part of life. I just have to find the happy medium of adjustment to where I am ok with both of them.