Metempsychosis, M.A. (10)
It is uncanny to be accused of misanthropy just because one does not indulge in attending funerals. What is so important, so essential in turning up at these stiff, dreary, often creepy and uneventful ceremonies with a tint of bigotry and hypocrisy compared with spending the last living moments with the person in question? Why are they all coming to the final show instead of visiting her during the prelude when she was still alive, responsive and still curious to see those who knew and cared about her welfare? How come you can find time to drag your family all the way to the funeral home - with your flowers, your make-up, your high heels, your black tights, your best suits and your kindest words of boundless compassion and understanding, but you couldn't make the same distance in the last ten or so years when a simple How Are You, or even your presence could make a difference during her illness, perhaps having a very positive impact on her self-image and her vision of humanity? I don't understand the logic, the myopia, the callousness, I don't understand the hierarchy of priorities people choose to follow. Compassion, my ass.
I went, but I went mostly for Kora. There was no need in my heart to produce any outstanding signs of respect. All respect I had for her had been manifested while she was still among us. I went to see how my adored niece is coping with the event. She was brave, no doubt. She didn't make much of it, though she loved her granny as much as her granny loved her. This is good news - she is strong. She will do well in life. Most importantly, at least in my presence, she doesn't come up with nonsensical questions in the vein of Where did grandma's soul go afterwards, or Is she looking at us from above her coffin... Agnes pushes her to attend mass and the Church youth meetings but I am relieved to see she so far resists the antiquated ruminations. Fingers crossed, she'll never share testimonies of how she became a religious zealot and how later in life, once the youthful enthusiasm and dogmatic slumber subsided, she switched to disenchanted agnosticism. I know the process, I've been there. I remember how a snake sheds its skin, how it sidewinds out of its old shell, leaving behind its old parasites... Having said that, one could call it a valuable lesson learned in life, an integral part of personality growth. No better learning than from one's own mistakes - the lessons last longer, although hardly ever beyond a single given incarnation...
Did I just write this? That's interesting. Looks like my work on the subject isn't over yet... Unlike embodiment or birth, the notion of in-carnation poses a problem of belief in the essence/soul/spirit/divine spark/you-name-it that travels throughout aeons and lands itself in bodies to re-emerge on Earth depending on what happened previously. Steiner, bless his unwarranted revelations, used to say that those who refuse to incarnate at the last minute, end up born deformed, severely disabled, etc. So what happens to them the next time around? Can they undo the damage and regain their able-bodied form? It's a vague and twisted idea delivered by means of a vague and dubious parturition... No birth is simple anyway, but in the case of in-carnation, it is the whole complex chain of them, multiple seasons, multiple births, and a convoluted cultural link extending far beyond East and West... It's a mess. Can it be disproved? Can it be proved? Must we uphold the unprovable and unfalsifiable and carry the misconceptions into the future, honouring and vindicating them as if our Universe depended upon them? Can they be discarded at will? Can they be suspended, put in brackets, relegated to the archive? Can we find solid evidence that categorically supports or contradicts any supernatural claim? What about the claims that can be rejected and upheld in equal measure? Can we be absolutely sure that the whale swallowed Pinocchio before it sneezed him out?
My mother was a lapsed Lutheran. She did not care about arguments for reincarnation since it did not feature in the canon. Yet those who believe in it insist that belief does not matter, that one comes back regardless because that's the law... Even Lutherans...
Anyway, the rest was a mere necessity, a silent handshake with Agnes, and with many others whom I never saw in my life, including those who attend every funeral taking place, as if it were a concert or a play. Some of them joined the wake afterwards but I couldn't. I did not have anything to give. I was only glad for Mother she did not live long enough to learn about Joseph Fritzl and his underground. It would upset her beyond words. I was also happy for her to live to such a fine age, eighty-eight. To survive the war, the resettlement, and to find new life in Vienna... She went through a lot at such young age. But then, Elisabeth Fritzl went through much more, and the fact she survived all of this is nothing short of a miracle.
Does Kora know? Did she hear the news? She most likely did - it's everywhere. I won't ask her about it though. Not yet.
On the margin: Fritzl... I wonder if he's religious. I wonder what he has to say about reincarnation. If he ever thought of the 'arrangement' as two separate lives, or does he perceive it as one? Does he even realize what he has done?! It may yet turn out in the course of the investigation; unless he decides to remain silent.
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