Deaths in Karmic Batches
I’ve read that when people reincarnate, they may do so in batches, sticking together for their progressive learning. I find the idea mostly pleasing. But I hadn’t thought about how that might call for group exits. This fall-winter has knocked me on the head with two deaths. First my beloved brother (my only sibling) on October 10. Now my stepmother, January 19, last week.
Death’s absoluteness blindsided me. You can’t plead for just one more phone call or visit. You can’t ask a departed person to send you an occasional text message saying they’re doing fine in that foreign country called the afterlife. Whatever language they speak there is mostly incomprehensible to me. Grief is in the silence.
To process my karmic batch of exits, I write, of course. Today my stepmother’s body is being cremated. It’s a hard fact. I awoke into it not happy. But the impenetrable is what writers write to penetrate. We try to write our way behind the curtain, even when that’s impossible.