Sunday, January 18, 2015

Loss of Scooter: Love, Death, Religion, and the Lack of "Heaven"

When I had to put down my beloved cat Scooter in 2009, a piece of my heart broke. I experienced a pain which I have no words for describing. In order to ease the suffering somewhat, I reached out to many people and inquired about what their religions had to say about death. I hoped to find an explanation to where my cat went, as it was too unbearable to not know. I would have loved to believe what my many friends told me: that my cat was running around in cat heaven and that one day I may see him again, hold him in my arms, touch and smell his soft fur. In spite of my desperation however, none of the “options” that I was provided resonated with me.

I was not looking for a temporary crutch of some sort. All I wanted was, to know the “truth”; an explanation that I can wrap my mind around so that the loss of Scooter did not hurt as much. At one point of this spiritual journey, I reached the point where I was ready to face my own version of the truth: I made peace with the fact that I—a human—will never find out or “understand” where he went. That is also the moment when I finally made my peace with death, and subsequently also life, altogether. I not only learned to accept, but also to welcome and embrace uncertainty.  

Today, I accept death as one of the most natural parts of life; it is authentic and real. Without a doubt, more natural than the lives that humans are living on this earth. I believe that death is endless peace and nothingness; not more, not less. 

I would not have wanted to come to any other conclusion, no matter how painful the discovery initially was. 


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