After death

[User345649]

Ok so I lost a parent earlier last year and I just can't seemed to accept they have just gone. Like where is their soul? It doesn't make sense to me....is anyone else think the same way? I accept they have died and their body is no longer here, but it's their energy I can't accept has just gone?

Would appreciate your insights x

@User345649 I'm sorry for your loss. Is there someone you can talk to? Cruse bereavement helped me when I lost my mum x

Hello. I lost my mum last year too and I have wondered the same. My mum was such a big personality that it seems so odd and unthinkable that she's just not here any more.

We are Christian so I'm happy to believe that she's in heaven - and that's what she believed too.

It takes a lot of getting used to. I suppose it's because we have known our parents our whole life, so it's hard for us to imagine our lives without them.

My Dad died 30 years ago. I still struggle with him just being 'nowhere'. I've had counselling, which helped somewhat. But in reality, it's just always going to be a struggle.

I lost my mom when I was 17 and my Dad last year at 37. Like you I feel the same way. I also have trouble looking at his urn and thinking that’s a person and was my dad. It kills me and I keep trying to make sense but it just hurts

I’m so sorry for your loss I believe that their energy is still here because energy can’t be destroyed - they still exist but just in a very different way. Everyone that’s ever lived is still in the universe and is absorbed into other forms. “According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly”.

My mum died 7 years ago, and i still miss her and think of her everyday. She loved the sea and beach, so I think of her being on a permanent holiday in her happy place, enjoying the sun with a cocktail and a good book.

Your parent is in your heart and in your head. In how you act and what you think and what you do. They made you the person you are. The way you live continues their legacy.

I'm sorry for your loss. It's so hard isn't it, like you I struggle with the unknown of what happens when we pass after losing my Mum last year.

I know she is no longer here and I can have imaginary conversations with her in my head, but I know that's just my subconscious doing that. There are no signs or anything like that even though I wish there was.

This, absolutely

I lost both parents recently. My belief that is they’re nowhere. I don’t believe there is anything after death. That doesn’t mean I don’t take comfort from remembering them, I do. My siblings and I remember them constantly. But souls, heaven and energy after death is something I simply don’t believe in. Nice if you do, but also nice if you don’t.

I agree with this. My Mum was a keen artist and my Dad was a musician. When I think of all their talent and what has happened to it, I believe that it has simply been born into other people IYSWIM. Young people that are nurturing and developing those same talents.

I'm not religious so I don't believe in souls. But this helps me:

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly.
Amen. -Aaron Freeman

I'm sorry for your loss. My own experience is that the "denial" ( - or maybe that is to strong a word - because it's not so much denying they are dead as more knowing they are but not being quite able to accept it because you don't understand where they are which isn't the same) or non-acceptance lasts for a long long time. Longer than you'd think possible. And why not? We'd all be happier if we were sure our deceased loved one was coming back or still here or to be met in a future life.

I think lots of people feel like this. I saw an Instagram video of someone in grief just saying out out about his dead wife "Where Are You?". It's hard to come to terms with because it is outside the realm of our understanding which is unusual in human life with so many advances in science and education. Most things these days we understand.

Personally, I think death is just like a computer game character being killed in the game or a toy running out of batttery - that it existed but afterwards, there is nothing there. Similar to what you recall before you were born. Before a baby is born - concieved - there is nothing.

Given your OP @User345649 You may find this an interesting read Why You Want A Physicist to Speak At Your Funeral - it is about energy: -

https://creatingceremony.com/blog/loss/eulogy-from-a-physicist-aaron-freeman/

@MrsTerryPratchett thank you for a very thought provoking and comforting post 💐

This is exactly how feel about my parents.

@MrsTerryPratchett that's so weird - cross post of the same thing about the physicist & at a weird middle of the night time! How oddly coincidental - or maybe grieving people staying up all night...

My dad died last year. I was with him at death and it shocked me how instantaneously he just wasn’t there any more - bearing in mind he’d been heavily unconscious for a week beforehand, he was completely different as soon as he’d died, like a switch had flicked. In a weird way I think this helped me. He’s just not here any more, his body had pretty much already stopped but the change was his soul switching off too.

I’m very sorry for your loss.

I definitely don't believe that the person exists in any physical or spiritual form at all once they have died. I think it's hard to accept it but that's just our brains making things complicated.

Having loving memories and talking about people with fond memories is what matters.

I lost my dear dad suddenly last year. I often wonder where he is, I know he was cremated - he’s actually in my Livingroom. Sometimes the odd thing goes in my favour and I’ll think oh, there he is. I think it’s a coping mechanism for me, the day I went to collect his ashes for example - there was 2 small feathers on my car door and windscreen. It was weirdly comforting. So sorry about all others who have also lost a parent. 😔

Struggling also.
The physicists info doesn’t help tbh.

My ds died suddenly 12 weeks ago today. I don't believe in heaven, or souls...so to me he has just ended.

My mum died earlier this month. How funny this popped up on my thread. We’ve been speaking about how we all feel differently in our family.

I was in quite a state about the way her final days were handled by the NHS, and for about 48 hours immediately after I came as close as I’ve ever come to losing my mind. I felt like my heart was on fire.

I calmed down gradually, largely cos of the odd half Valium and good friends talking me through it. I pulled myself together and felt more ‘normal’ - then about ten days in it came back in a massive rush. It felt unreal. I spoke to my mum for at least an hour a day for years, much much more at the end, was with her as much as I could be, and realisation that I wouldn’t ever hear her voice again felt like a big black hole in my head. The thought of never hearing her happy greeting again, never hearing her advice again, not discussing all the things about what happened after she’d gone, stories I know she’d love to know - the sense of loss came over me like it had just happened.

I don’t really have religious belief to comfort me. I don’t believe there will be a celestial reunion for us. I wish I did. But she did. At her funeral the priest said - let her belief and strength be your consolation. She was able to cope with her illness because she had faith and a good family. You made her life better. You made promises and kept them. You could not have done more. You are blessed by love.

I found comfort in that, not theology, not science. Simple duty, love and truth. I do things I think she’d have done, try to replicate her thoughts and her actions. She’s gone, physically, but her influence runs through me like the writing in a stick of rock. I hear her. When I am not sure, I ask her.

So in my view we are the afterlife, we are God and Heaven to one another for the time we are on earth. What happens afterwards, where we go, is unanswerable by any of us. My personal answer - they love and live in you. They made you, they raised you, they loved you and they live within you now. You are blended for eternity, and what you have of them now you can never lose. It’s only a personal theory but it brings me not only comfort, but joy.

I wish comfort and joy for you, and everyone else here who has lost someone dear.

That is strange. I posted it on another thread recently as well.

@AuntieMarys - I'm so sorry for your loss.

Read 'A journey of souls'