On a plane again.  On my way to Seattle.  There can be NO memories of you there!  I’ve never even been there.  Unfortunately, I know that is not a real barrier.  I still carry you with me wherever I go.  Probably even when I go to Australia.  Further proof of an afterlife.

So in thinking of an afterlife, I am wondering what you found after you died.  Was it instant quiet?  Nothingness?  Was your life totally over or as most people believe, did your soul leave your mangled body and go on to the next life, wherever souls go?  

Were you ushered into heaven and into the loving arms of Mary?  (Fantastical illusion to be sure, but one that survivors embrace.) Did you see your uncle again?  Were you and Ty and Cowboy reunited? 

Or did your soul morph into another living creature?  You talked so often about wanting to come back as an eagle.  Did I ever tell you about the annoying hawk that appeared after every time I ran after you died?  I used to yell at it to stop following me.  I think stalking would be a hard habit to break even after death.

Did your soul end up in some in-between purgatory?  Are you wandering around trying to make sense of your own demise? Are you able to think rationally?  Question your decision?  Feel regret?  If so, are you ever able to find peace?  I used to feel your presence physically.  (Somehow my lamp did turn on in the middle of the night for absolutely no scientific, rational reason…)  Whether it was only a metaphorical truth and not grounded in reality, I know something changed after we buried your ashes.  Your presence was different, definitely more ephemeral.  Or maybe I’m just imagining the change to make sense of emotions yet untapped.

And then there’s the unnerving thought that you are in hell.  You didn’t believe in a hell, but what if you found yourself there? Are you there because you killed yourself?  Or are you there because your sins outweighed your contributions?  Are you there because you weren’t “saved?”  I find myself clinging to my faith in part because I am terrified that my sins are going to result in the same eternal damnation and I don’t want to see you again.  And then there’s the fear that your afterlife will be my eternal damnation, my punishment, my payment for all my lies, pain I caused people I love, my sins…

It’s so difficult to comprehend your afterlife.  I want to know what happened the second your life left your body.  I think about it often.  I wonder at what point your consciousness ended.  Did you hear the gunshot?  Did you feel pain?  Did you know you were dying/dead?  The morbidity of my thoughts constantly interrupt my sleep, my work, my happiness.  And so I run away to Seattle.  If you’re looking over my shoulder, haunting my thoughts as I write this, or somehow transcendentally able to connect to this letter, please leave me alone for at least the next four days.  Please?  My mind and my emotions need a reprieve.  I want and need to breathe deeply.  I want to sleep without nightmares.  Please?