The Great News About Death… and Other Adversity

Today’s post by Vicki Paris Goodman about death and other adversity looks at death and grief differently. Vicki is the author of To Sam, With Love: A Surviving Spouse’s Story of Inspired Grief , she was our guest in episode 323. Video and audio.

I want to talk about death.

And whether you know it or not, you almost certainly want to hear what I have to say about it.

The unfortunate thing about death is… we don’t talk about it. Not comfortably, and not at length. Why is that?

Honestly, I’m not sure. But I can certainly suggest a few possibilities. Maybe it’s as simple as, we’re not comfortable in conversations about death because we don’t discuss it. And we don’t discuss it because we’re uncomfortable doing so. In other words, it’s become a Catch 22 in our culture, a circular exercise in denial that goes nowhere. Consequently, the subject is fraught with taboo.

So, death is the most awful, dreaded occurrence. It’s the worst thing that can happen to us, to our loved ones, to our pets, or to any sentient being. It’s so terrible that we can’t imagine anything worse. Death is positively…unspeakable.

Maybe we inadvertently just happened upon the reason we don’t talk about it. It’s unspeakable.

I was raised in a secular family by parents and grandparents who thought people who believed in God, who needed God, were foolish, unenlightened and weak. These gullible souls deluded themselves by engaging in what my family regarded as religious or spiritual make-believe.

So, I will pose a startling question: Is death really tragic? Is it even a bad thing at all?

Maybe it’s even an event to be celebrated!

Here’s why:

Most people believe in a loving God and in an exquisite afterlife. That afterlife is generally acknowledged to be an indescribably beautiful place where souls can spend eternity surrounded by a love so powerful and all-consuming that it is not possible for us to comprehend it here on Earth. Some who have had near-death experiences describe having known everything while they were on the “other side.” It’s logical that a oneness with an all-knowing God avails souls of His knowledge of history, physics, mathematics and everything else.

So, I think the conclusion to be drawn is obvious.

We have been so conditioned to awfulize death that we don’t connect the dots. This social construct of Western cultures makes us so afraid of death and dying that we can’t see straight when it comes to the logic and reason surrounding this mindless perceptual auto-pilot.

If the beauty, knowledge and perfection of the afterlife is so sublime as to be beyond our comprehension, then what exactly is terrible about dying?

Writing for Psychology Today, Robert Lanza persuasively states, “We believe in death because we’ve been taught we die. Also, of course, because we associate ourselves with our bodies and we know bodies die.”

So, a part of our conditioning with regard to death is to conflate the body and the soul as if they are inseparable. Many of us have acknowledged that body and soul are separate entities. But that cultural conditioning creeps in to make us forget that detail, and to set it aside. But that detail is crucial to our proper understanding of death and must not be casually discarded. Not if we are to view death in the proper light.

Eben Alexander is a neurosurgeon who had a vivid near-death experience that turned his secular outlook inside out.

Dr. Alexander says, “The brain itself does not produce consciousness. That it is, instead, a kind of reducing valve or filter, shifting the larger, non-physical consciousness that we possess in the non-physical worlds down into a more limited capacity for the duration of our mortal lives.”

In other words, it is our brains that limit our souls’ comprehension of the universe while we are here on Earth. Once we cross over to the afterlife, there is no such constraint on what we can know and understand.

Perhaps you can now begin to see that we need not fear death or think of it as terrible. After all, what comes afterwards is far greater and more fulfilling than life on Earth. And if we are faced with the death of the love of our life, or any loved one, we can know that God’s plan was for them to cross over to the afterlife in advance of our own “transition,” that we have more to do while still on Earth, and that we will join our loved one in the afterlife later.

This insight should enable us, as survivors, to achieve renewed contentment, even enthusiasm for the future, as we await our turn to join the soul of our deceased loved one in the afterlife. In the meantime, we are tasked with learning God’s lessons for us, experiencing as much as we can, and maybe even teaching others!

I think the implications are enormous.

Even so, there is one other aspect of the death of a spouse that may trip up a survivor’s recovery.

That is, there seems to be an ideal life to which many people aspire. Among other things, it consists of one happy marriage to one spouse, that ends after six or seven decades together when both have lived into their 80s or 90s. And this is the way life plays out for some couples. But certainly not for all.

Here is the insight God blessed me with on this subject…

It’s apparent to me that God has a plan for each of us. What we do with that plan matters!

For some of us, God’s vision for our life is compartmentalized, or segmented. To put it differently, some of us are meant to live out portions of our lives in different ways and with different people.

When I think of my husband Sam’s death that way, I don’t feel at all cheated or unlucky. Instead, I feel blessed to have been with Sam for the duration of our marriage until he passed. And I feel equally blessed to have the opportunity to embark on this next chapter which, so far, has been satisfying and productive, even exciting!

Who is to say that life with one person is superior to a life comprised of pieces that may place us in committed relationships with two or more people?

And this question brings up another important point:

I’ve spoken to a number of surviving spouses who say they feel guilty, even disloyal to their deceased spouse, if they move on with any degree of satisfaction and happiness. Some also report feeling self-conscious about entering into a sexual relationship with a new partner, rightly believing that their spouse might be watching from the afterlife.

I think of it this way… souls in Heaven are surely “perfected” by the unimaginable all-encompassing love with which they are surrounded. Furthermore, they are no longer limited by physical brains, so they understand everything. From this, we can only conclude that negative human emotions like jealousy, anger and insecurity are nonexistent in the afterlife.

Given these “truths,” it naturally follows that the souls of our deceased spouses want only what will make us the happiest, make us feel the most loved, during the time we have left here on Earth. How could it be any other way?

One last thing…

These days, when something disruptive happens, be it a bad hair day or a major life disturbance, before reacting I remind myself there is a lesson to be learned from the perceived misfortune. I remember that it’s all part of a plan to afford me certain lessons and experiences during my life on Earth. And I can see the futility in pouting, yelling or just thinking myself to have been unlucky. There is a reason it happened, and I’d best think about God’s intended take-away.

And I’m convinced, if we learn God’s lessons sooner rather than later, He will stop throwing adversity and obstacles in our path in an effort to teach us those particular lessons!

I trust these concepts have upended the way you think of death, loss, adversity, God’s plan for you, and, really, life itself. They certainly upended mine. And I know that recognizing the significance of God’s plan for you will help you to more constructively face life’s adversity. Wishing you blessings and inspiration, and a wonderful next chapter.

Author Bio:

Vicki Paris Goodman is the author of To Sam, With Love: A Surviving Spouse’s Story of Inspired Grief. After the death in 2019 of her husband Sam, the love of her life, she was unexpectedly flooded with optimism and presented with a host of possibilities for an exciting and meaningful future. She received valuable insights, seemingly coming from an outside source, enabling her to conceive a more realistic and uplifting understanding of death, loss, adversity and God’s plan. She knows these concepts will free others to face the passing of a loved one, or any adversity, with a far more optimistic outlook.

Having lived most of her life in the Los Angeles area, Ms. Goodman now resides in Prescott, Arizona. She is a retired mechanical engineer. She sings and plays violin semi-professionally. And for over twenty years she served a Long Beach (CA) area newspaper as theater critic. She is currently writing her second book, Speed Bumps: And Other Impediments to Life in the Fast Lane, a slightly self-deprecating treatise on the trials of life, especially from the point of view of a type A personality.