As time goes on, I'm struggling with what to do next. I was just barely standing under the weight of college, family obligations, health issues, and re-adjusting to life after last year's utter chaos. Now that I'm faced with the imminent death of my grandma, and the possible death of a cousin, I feel like I'm being crushed to death. As tenacious and stubborn as I am, I'm starting to learn when to stop, and right now that "drop class" button is looking really good.
But, I don't think I can do that. I'd rather fail a course than admit defeat, especially admit to being a two-time college dropout to my dying grandma. She doesn't want me to suffer because of her. She doesn't want anyone in the family to be crushed under the weight of her diagnosis. As far as I can tell, just based on my past interactions with her since my grandpa passed away, and the fact that she's refused treatment for her cancer and other aliments, she's ready to go. Perhaps, eager to.
But, go where? Will she really live on after her body dies? Is there truly life after death? Or, is it just a metaphor, describing what happens as the body is buried and becomes one with the soil? Or, is it both? Obviously, I don't think anyone can really answer that question. Sure, from a strictly scientific perspective, when a person dies, they lose consciousness and their body begins to rot, soon turning into dust. But, as tempting as it is for my skeptical, logical mind to strictly believe in science and nothing else beyond it, I don't think that's the right thing to do. Hell, I don't think science can answer most important questions such as, "Why are we here?", "Where do we come from?", "Is the spiritual realm real?", "Do paranormal events happen?", etc, etc.
When it comes to those types of questions, we can only answer from personal experience. Doing my best to suspend all disbelief, when I'm faced with questions pertaining to the spiritual realm, my answers would lean heavily into the notion that there is, in fact, a spiritual realm. We do, in fact, have souls. The spiritual realm can, in fact, interact with our realm. Miracles can, and do, happen. God does hear and respond to our prayers. But, this has never been and probably never will be proven. If it was provable, some ultra-spiritual yogi would've walked out of a scientific research lab with a shitload of money by now. But, it's not disprovable either. And, that's what really gets to me; the fact that the spiritual realm can neither be verified or disproven scientifically. It all comes down to the personal beliefs of each individual.
So, what do I personally believe? Frankly, I don't know. I still consider myself a Christian, though I'm pretty agnostic. I simply don't know, and I refuse to really say for certain God exists or doesn't. Same goes for all things spiritual and paranormal. I simply don't have a damn clue, though I do have personal experiences and the experiences of others to help me along this long, harsh journey of death, belief, and spirituality. After all, that's all I can really go by, as science is strictly the study of the natural world, not the super natural world.
A couple hours I got the news from my dad, I called my grandma Debbie to ask for her guidance and support. While she isn't a Christian, she still believes in a Creator and an afterlife, mostly due to her personal experiences, and the fact that she witnessed her mom (my great-grandma) go through lung cancer. My great-grandma lost both of her sons early on. Her one son died of Cystic Fibrosis at the age of two. Her other son (a man called Jack) died in the early 2000's from brain bleed after being hit by a car and not seeking proper treatment till it was too late.
As my great-grandma laid in the hospital during the last two weeks of life, my grandma and the nurses witnessed my great-grandma having full-on conversations with people nobody but her could see. Those people she saw were her sons, ready and waiting to take her upstairs, according to my great-grandma. My great-grandma also witnessed many birds she called Yellow Canaries, though they were actually American Goldfinches (which my grandma realized when an actual Goldfinch landed in the tree outside of the hospital window, and my great-grandma proclaimed, "Oh look! A canary!").
When my great-grandma passed away, American Goldfinches followed our family everywhere, and were especially drawn to my grandma Debbie. The Goldfinches would literally chase my grandma Debbie's car in huge flocks all the way from her house to her work (she worked as a nurse), and back home again. Even today, well over a decade since my great-grandma passed, Goldfinches periodically crowd in my grandma Debbie's front lawn. Particularly around dates that were special to my great-grandma.
On top of that, my grandma has had many spiritual experiences pertaining to her grandma (my great-great grandma, who I'll just call Nana, as that's what my grandma called her). Nana passed away almost a decade before I was born from natural causes. My grandma was also very close to Nana, and hoped Nana would visit her even after she was gone.
While I am aware of the fact that my grandma has encountered Nana many times, the one that sticks out to me happened when I was four years old, undergoing a minor though scary procedure at the hospital. Obviously, my grandma was very concerned about me, and couldn't stop worry about how my visit would go. My grandma was out-and-about that day running errands. At a stoplight, my grandma voiced her worries about me aloud, looked up into the rear-view mirror, and noticed the driver behind her looked very similar to Nana, right down to the color of her eyes and shape of her nose. My grandma, bewildered, watched this woman through the rear-view mirror for a few seconds further. Just before the light changed, the woman in the rear-view mouthed, "The baby will be okay!", and then vanished revealing a man was the actual driver of the car.
My grandma, not quite sure what to do with the experience, chalked it up to some sort of psychosomatic event. While comforting, there was no way it was actually real. Hours later, I was released from the doctors' appointment, and Mom brought me over to grandma Debbie's to spend the night (she was very tired and stressed out, and needed help taking care of me). In my hands, I had a little green Saint Patrick's hat that I'd been given at the hospital (apparently, a nurse was handing them out from a Saint Patrick's day themed wagon). Now, this was in November, around Thanksgiving. There was no reason for there to be a nurse in the main waiting room handing out Saint Patrick's day stuff to the kids, but for whatever reason, they were. Guess when Nana's birthday was? Saint Patrick's day!
