Sorry for the rambling but I’m driving myself insane. Since my partner passed away out of the blue I’ve become so obsessed with what happens after death and I know there’s absolutely no way of knowing. I keep thinking about it constantly. Is death absolute and final like a light that just goes out forever or is he somewhere in a different form and we’ll be reunited one day? He didn’t believe in anything after death and I’ve never really believed but now I’m desperate to. My ramblings are very odd and they don’t make sense. I was actually a very calm rational person before my partner passed so please accept my apologies in advance.
I keep thinking about people who suffer horrendously before they die, people with cancer or people who are brutally murdered. If there’s absolutely nothing after death and they just die forever then they won’t even be aware of anything after they die, their lights just go out so does it even matter how we die? Even if we are murdered we won’t know anything about it after death as it would be like we never were. Obviously it wouldn’t be nice to go through it whilst we are still alive and for the people who have to watch the suffering but my mam died of cancer and suffered terribly for months before she died, if there is absolutely nothing afterwards does it even make any difference because she’s gone from the universe forever like she never existed, it’s not like she would have any awareness now because she doesn’t exist anymore. If I was to get cancer now and die in a few months will it even matter once I’ve died? I won’t be aware I even existed.
Another thing that I’ve realised since he passed is just how much torment the loved ones of missing people must go through. Whilst awaiting my OHs post mortem results I was torturing myself thinking the most irrational of thoughts wondering what happened to him. It was assumed it was his heart and it actually was but before we had that confirmed I would lie awake crying at night thinking what happened to my baby? Could somebody have done something to him? Left something lying around that he tripped over and had a brain injury? So many irrational things going around in my mind. I can only imagine the absolute torment the families of missing people go through. They must lie awake at night imagining the worst possible things that could have happened to their loved ones. How do they cope with that?
Hi lostlil, ive always believed that your born, you live then you die and thats it, no higher plane or anything. The trouble is now im so desperate for a sign or something to let me know my Jane is with me. I have a couple of friends who are into spiritual side of things and they say she is watching all the time. Being a non believer means i wont sense her around me doesn’t it??? I long to hope to be reunited in some form one day but i really struggle to think it will be like that
@LostLil I’m so sorry for your the loss of your loved one. You are at an early stage of grief where everything is scrambled. Don’t apologise, your ramblings are not odd. None of us wanted to have our loved ones taken away from us and all of us would wish for anything to be with them again and to retain that hope, however rational we are and however irrational that hope may seem.
I would say that, although we would not be aware of anything after we die, it does not follow that it would be like we never were or never existed as the imprint of our lives on those whom we have touched will live on through them and, like bereavement of our life partner, we cannot imagine the torment the families of missing people go through unless it happens to us.
So @LostLil you have not lost it, you are just lost in the fog of grief. The fog will start to lift, but I think we would all say that the grief does not, It becomes part of our lives. Love and support xx
Yes you are torturing yourself but think we all have at some point. My pre death/after death views have changed. I think because my partner thought there was nothing then I don’t feel him but actually, I’ve had too many things happen and now question it.
Regardless of what I think or feel, it doesn’t bring him back. A feather, a robin, buzzard hawks , all things I see far too often since he died, are they messages? Who knows, does it help? nope, as it’s still not him. It just gives me another question that I won’t get an answer to.
If I’m never going to know the answer, I’m not going to torture myself over it.
I won’t know until it’s my turn. Will I see him again? Will I get answers I need? What if there isn’t anything and I will never see him again, should I waste my life waiting for him, waiting to join him, just to have nothing?
Life is full of questions right now that I cannot answer. I just have to get through each day and see where the road I am now on takes me.
One day I may believe something, until then I will just get up and get through the day as best I can. I owe it to myself to do that.
@Mike75
Very nicely put. My partner touched many people’s lives and he will be remembered for all the good he did for so many people. His legacy will live on in everyone who had the pleasure of knowing him, colleagues, friends and family and the wider community where he worked.
Do any of you think that knowing one way or another would change how you live your life going forward? Is there anything you would do differently if you knew for sure you’d be reunited one day? Or not reunited one day? I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with having an answer, I’m trawling the Internet early hours of the morning and going over the same stuff over and over and over again.
Absolutely yes, if I knew 100% that he was here in some form watching over me, protecting me, as he always did, then that would make a difference. But I will never know x
I think if i definitely knew she was with me id find that even more upsetting as i can’t have her in the form i wish, i just want to feel her with her arms wrapped around me.
I feel the opposite to that. If I knew for sure I’d see him again in any form I really think I’d be able to pick myself up and carry on. I know there’s no way of ever knowing though. I do wish there was a way of inducing a NDE to see what actually happens but I guess even that could be hallucinations
@LostLil If we did know the answer to your question then it would affect us. But the reality is that we do not, it is just another big ‘What if’. All we can do is live in the present, take one at a time and deal with whatever life throws at us. xx
I’m also frantically googling what the scientists think
happens after death. I personally believe that it’s just nothing at all but then I remember that people have seen said they’ve seen their deceased relatives etc just before passing and that makes me wonder. But then they say people can be delirious so who knows.
My mum was a sceptic and so I’d be very interested to see what’s happening with her. I’m even contemplating going to spiritualists but I’ve been to loads in the past and they were absolutely useless
@MrsY Scientists can only examine what they can measure and their research is mainly focussed on the process of dying rather than what has happened after death as this cannot be recorded or tested. I read that research indicates people die more gradually and that the sense of hearing remains for up to half an hour after other vital signs have stopped. I was with my wife as she passed and spoke to her for over half an hour after this.
Spiritualists and mediums deal with belief, not science. xx
I think grief can make us delirious, I think it’s only natural to have realistic dreams and maybe hear our loved ones voices so loud in our dreams that it wakes us up. They are on our minds from morning till night so it’s not at all surprising that we dream about them too.
I really want to see a spiritualist or medium too. There’s one called Tyler Henry in America who I’ve become a bit obsessed with, he does a series on Netflix called AfterLife with Tyler Henry. He “seems” so very accurate but I’m aware how easy it would be for him to research the people he is reading. He has like 30,000 people on his waiting list and if I lived in America I would definitely join that waiting list.
I think it is totally normal to question mortality when it has deeply affected us and our loved one’s are no longer here but I also believe it’s us trying to hold on to them. The reality is they are not coming back and even if there is an afterlife they are not going to be there in their human form as we knew them. The only place they now live is in our hearts and memories. It is pointless torturing ourselves knowing there are no answers. It is literally clinging on to something that isn’t there.
The harsh reality is we are never going to have a meal with them, go on a holiday or anything else again but we are still here and have to navigate our way through all this to live our lives again as we have no alternative
We tend to see what we want to believe, an example was I was out walking today and I saw a robin and I said as I have done since my dad died 5 years ago " hello dad” and then I stopped in my tracks and thought or could it be Jim?
So if you have lost multiple loved one’s and you see a robin which loved one is it? Answer: the one you want it to be
Yes that’s true. I don’t believe robins or white feathers are signs but I did find a white feather down his mams house the other day. It was on the sofa after I’d sat back down after going to make coffee, I didn’t think much of it because I thought maybe someone had put it there for me to find or that it had fallen out of the funeral flowers book we had been looking through. I still kept it though “just incase”
Today I found out one of her cushions has a hole in the cover and is leaking tiny white feathers I felt like a right numpty then But it made me realise how easy it is to take something as a “sign” because we are desperately looking for them
Exactly we are desperately trying to hold on to our loved one’s, completely natural to do that because one day they are here and the next they have just disappeared and when anything disappears the brain is wired to ask “where has that gone?”
I personally don’t want to know what happens after death because I can only control what’s living and that’s me.
I was like you though for the first few weeks driving myself crazy with all that but I soon realized it was exhausting and I was going round in circles and never going to get the answers because none of us know.
I felt like a right numpty then 
But it made me realise how easy it is to take something as a “sign” because we are desperately looking for them 