Is that all there is....................?

With shock I absorbed the news that Tim Russert died. Just keeled over at his desk while he was working, and...poof....

The first thought that went through my mind was: Nooo...he is not going to know how it ENDS.....

I am talking about the presidential election. He was so "into" it, he so thoroughly enjoyed the huge hubbub around this election. And now he won't even get to see the end of it!!!

My second thought was....

He's too young...58 is young!

He's gone....and I mean....gone.....poof!

I mean....

When someone that vital and that young just dies, well...it's just not right!
He just stops to exist. Gone, dust. In my own mind we become so darn insignificant when we die, especially when we die young.

I understand it when old people die, and when people pass away after a long illness.

But this?

We truly are just a tiny grain of sand in the big universe.

But...

What's it all about?

I recall reading Marie Curie's thoughts when she saw her beloved Pierre sprawled on a Paris street after he was run over by a carriage. She looked at the brain matter on the ground and tried to wrap her head around the fact that there was this man's brain, the brilliant scientist, that brain that thought about intricate stuff, made important discoveries.
All dissolved into nothingness.

I think about John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. All stricken down in their prime.
All so exceptional, with such incredible potential.

I never watched The Sopranos. But I did catch the last episode.
The family at the table in a restaurant, sharing a meal, and then

Poof...nothing.....

Screen goes blank. Right in the middle of a sentence, a gesture. GONE.

Most viewers were pissed off, most people did not understand.

But I thought that ending was brilliant!

This is how it IS. Life just stops, when you're eating a bagel, reading a book.

And then there is nothing!

I know most people believe in an afterlife. Heaven, hell....

I just don't see that. I mean, picture it, billions of people in white robes crowding a huge space somewhere, living la vida loca.

And next door: hell, where the losers go to burn for eternity.

Of course the Catholic church did away with Purgatory a few years back. No more waiting room.

When I was in sixth grade, I asked our priest: where are the souls of the little babies who haven't been born yet?
I clearly remember him glancing at my teacher, Ms. Besselaer, the one with the piano legs, and he mulled it over for a little while.
He then said: they are waiting in Purgatory!!

So here I was, with my child's imagination, picturing a big cloud with little baby heads with blond curly hair and little wings sprouting from their necks, just waiting to be born.

Since Purgatory no longer exists, I wonder how the priest would answer me today.
Maybe we ran out of new souls? We're on our way out?

Pardon my irreverence, but this is how my mind works. I do not mean to be disrespectful.

SO....

My money is on reincarnation.

It makes perfect sense to me.

You live a good life, you get to come back and have a better life.
You screw up and you come back and pay the price. You have to correct your mistakes.

This cycle goes on until you've gotten it right, are enlightened, and are absorbed into the universe.

As for Tim Russert. Here was a man who loved his life. Did exactly what he wanted to do. Was a devout Catholic. Had a wonderful family. Had a job he just adored. A smart, kind man, loved and respected by his viewers and his co-workers, his friends.

If I am right about this reincarnation thing, I'll be sitting here in my nineties, watching yet another election, seeing the reborn Tim report with enthusiasm for the new and exciting black/female/gay democratic nominee for president of the United States.

And I'll be thinking, hey! I knew this guy way back then!


Have a wonderful weekend y'all

SGMKJ!