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What If Death Grants Us An Audience With Truth?

AI-Generated artwork - The personification of Truth

Ever since I was a small child, maybe 6 or 8 years old, I have had this recurring fantasy or daydream, if you will, about what happens after we die. I've always imagined myself landing in what I suppose you might call heaven (though what makes me think that's on the itinerary is beyond me) and being greeted by what I can only describe as a saintly embodiment of truth. It is a being that contains every fact that ever was and ever will be, and its purpose in my fantasy is to answer questions about the things that happened during my life on Earth.

I picture myself walking through heaven alongside this entity and coming to a stop in a secluded little area that is shaded, cool, and home to a rather plain, run-of-the-mill looking stone well. Standing against the grey stones that make up the well's waist-high wall, I peer down into the darkness at the glasslike surface of the pure, cold water deep down inside the well's shadowy bottom and see our reflections. My guide tells me I can ask any question, and he will give me the true answer from his enormous Book of Truths, which he has pulled out from who knows where and lain upon the stone well, ready to open at my first inquiry. 

I imagine myself pondering the life I've lived, trying to think of a question worthy of being my first step toward enlightenment. It feels monumental, so I dig deep for a burning question to match the magnitude of this moment. 

"How many bugs did I eat during my lifetime without knowing?", I ask. I'm certain there have been creepy crawlies in my food that managed to evade detection, and I am just curious to know exactly how many there were. (Magnitude? Check.)

He opens the book and thumbs through it as if trying to find a section conveniently titled "Insect Consumption" or something. Coming to a stop about a quarter of the way through this huge tome of infinite knowledge, he scans a page and recites the figures to me.

"During your life on Earth, you inadvertently ate 10,700,244 insects, including their eggs and larvae in various pieces and parts. That amounts to approximately 90 pounds of insect material consumed in your lifetime without you knowing it." He pauses and assesses my ability to hear more. "Do you want the breakdown by bug type? There were a surprising number of weevils. . ."

"That's okay! I'm good.", I interrupt. Even in heaven I suppose one can feel sick to one's ghostly stomach. 

I catch my breath and look at him in the eye, thinking my next question to him in my mind. "Which truth should I be asking for right now? Which one is most important for me to know?"

Discerning my mental inquiry without a word, Mr. Truth turns back to the book and flips through until he reaches the middle and runs his finger down a page, landing near the bottom edge. His face becomes very earnest, as he looks down at me leaning against the edge of the well, looking back at him inquisitively and impatient. I brace myself for the truth he is about to give me. 

That's where my little recurring daydream ends. I don't know which truth will be the most impactful or the most disturbing or the furthest reaching as far as the impact it had on my life and the lives of others around me. But I like to think that one day I'll find out. It's something I can look forward to after death, which doesn't frighten me at all. I confronted my own mortality early in life, and I have been expecting death since I was 19. Death and I have danced together several times over the years, flirting with one another but never sealing the deal. When we do, maybe I'll find myself in a shady glade in front of a stone well being gifted amazing truths about my life. 

In writing this post, I learned that this fantasy may fall under the term, gnosophilia, which refers to a deep devotion to knowing, not through intellectual pursuit, but through a soul-level understanding or intuition. It's about the soul's craving for truth and a knowing that resonates deep within, often described as a feeling that something is true in one's bones. This differs from the mind's logical pursuit of answers.   (see more about gnosophilia here.)

Lately, my daydream has changed a bit. I've been imagining others from my life going to the well and being read to from the Book of Truth by their guides into the afterlife. I find a sense of comfort in imagining them finding out that the things they believed about me were wrong, that the actions they took to punish me were unfounded, and that their hatred of me formed around a misperception and many wrong assumptions that led them to abandon our friendship for no reason other than their own stubborn, willful ignorance of the truth. My heart craves the sight of this revelation on their faces as they realize the gravity of their mistake. It's perhaps petty to want such painful knowledge to be imparted on someone, but I never said I was above being petty.

I know that's not going to happen. These people will walk around believing what they want to believe and spreading their misguided version of me to others they come across, ultimately tainting entire groups of people against me based on their mistaken belief in things I never did. And there's nothing I will ever be able to do that will convince them they are wrong, that their opinions of me were tainted by misinformation intentionally planted in their ears by malicious and monstrous individuals that thought playing with my life was a game. But that's a painful and bitter truth to swallow, so you'll forgive me if I indulge myself with a sip or two of fantasy to help that stinging truth go down and settle. 

If you find yourself being told by a friend or acquaintance about their negative experience with an individual that you do not personally know, try to remember that what they are describing is an experience unique them. No one is just one thing. To them, this person might have been clingy, might have ignored boundaries and demanded too much of their attention and time. He may have crossed lines they thought were threatening or controlling or manipulative, so they think of that person as an adversary that they will avoid. 

You will likely not hear your friend talk at length about the kindness, affection, and support he received from this awful person, or about how routinely your friend refused to accept any accountability for any of the conflict that occurred between them.

But try to picture the other guy's perspective for a moment. To him, your friend might have been disrespectful, might have broken commitments routinely and prioritized others over him so consistently that he felt frequently hurt by your friend's treatment of him. He might have tried to reason with your friend, communicating openly with them about how he felt and wanted to find compromise that would help stabilize their friendship and meet both their needs. 

Your friend might have ignored this person, belittled him and dismissed his feelings as if they weren't valid. He might have emotionally abused this person for months while using him for financial and emotional support. 

To this man, your friend might be viewed as a betrayer who was once a dear friend. This man might have spent months or years grieving the loss of his friendship with your friend, unable to stop your friend from badmouthing him and influencing others' opinions of him. 

You can't know from one person's telling of their experience what the other person's side of a story is, so how can you form a reliable, fair opinion of them based on someone's inherently subjective experience? 

We could all do a better job of giving the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making new acquaintances and letting people into our lives. Shutting others out because of gossip and rumors is not only cruel, it's ignorant. I can't respect anyone who doesn't have the conviction to form their own opinions of me based on our interactions rather than those I've had with another person. If I did, I'd be missing out on potentially wonderful relationships with decent folks who I wrote off for no good reason other than so-and-so's history with them. And that would be and ugly truth forever waiting for me in that big, beautiful Book of Truth. 

Inequitable Heartache

At some point, even the most self-loathing masochist reaches a point where he must acknowledge that the one-sided love he's been feeling is damaging his already crippled sense of self-worth. When the person he loves cares so little about seeing or spending time with him, what is a love sick fool to do? Berate himself for having been so blinded by feelings that he ignored every single sign and signal that the relationship was one of convenience for the other person? Or wallow in self-pity, worsening the contempt he already feels for himself by painting another layer of pathetic across his reflection in the mirror?

If you hadn't guessed, I'm the love sick masochist (and you're clearly an idiot). For months I've tried my damnedest to stop the growing fondness that developed between me and my friend, S. I knew from early on that he didn't share my fondness of  him; that my feelings were not reciprocated at all. And yet intensify they did. That's what happens, I suppose, to someone who subconsciously hates himself so much that he actually enjoys being treated poorly and disrespected at every turn. When his texts go unanswered and his intended goes around sticking his cock in any and every hole that'll take it - except his, of course - there seems to be some internal mechanism that turns that pain into sustenance and feeds on it as he sinks deeper and deeper in to depression.

Two weeks ago, I nearly killed myself. There wasn't any grab for attention. I didn't write a note or leave any hints for some friend or acquaintance to find. I simply drank what I knew to be a lethal amount of GHB, left my apartment so the cats wouldn't eat my corpse, and walked a few blocks to a semi-private place where I intended to die. I had taken a look at myself, at my prospects or lack thereof, and at how many years lay ahead of me during which I could look forward to worsening expectations of happiness as I aged and grew more sullen and somber. That wasn't a very attractive future for me, so I opted out of it.

Or at least I started the process of opting. What actually happened was that I chickened out at the last minute and puked my guts up all over the Spanish Steps just when that beautiful, thick honey feeling began to envelop me and make everything feel beautifully slow and sexy. The thought of my friends gathered to bid me farewell flashed before me, and I heard how they spoke of the waste of life I'd chosen. I was confronted by the fact that lying there slowly approaching death in perhaps the most chickenshit way possible, I was giving all of the power to S and reserving absolutely no agency in the matter for myself. I had surrendered my will and thrust all my worth and wellbeing upon his disinterested shoulders.

Fuck that noise. The thought of being so thought of was enough to start the nausea, and a quick diddling of my esophagus with my middle finger sufficiently finished the deed, causing the contents of my stomach to erupt in a sickening spray that decorated the historic steps with my sadness and disappointment. And also with corn.

And even after having narrowly dodged my own stupidity in that moment, even after the rage flooded in to replace the feeling of pity and sadness, still I went crawling back for more! What a piece of work is man indeed? This piece of work nearly offed himself because a self-centered man who took him for granted and made him often feel unwanted acted like a self-centered man. How unexpected!

I need some time, I guess, to feel the full brunt of hurt and withdrawal that has to happen before I can tolerate time spent without him in my life. I'm hopeful that I can come out the other side and be mature enough to still be his friend in some capacity, but I wouldn't lay odds on it with any hope of winning that bet. In all likelihood I'm going to have to hate him in order to stop loving him so hard. And in order to do that, I have to somehow find this hateful internal switch that transforms his disinterest into fuel for my self-hatred and thrives on the hurt that our fucked up relationship keeps causing me.

I regret having let my feelings for him drive me so close to the end. I never wanted to hang my toes over the precipice of suicide again, and yet there I was, guzzling death and welcoming it to the party all over again. Maybe it would have been the easier route around the hell that is to come. Perhaps the deep, dark nothingness that awaits would have been a kind of reward compared to all the fuckery that's about to unfold in my heart. I don't want to think about that. I just need to start feeling that hurt to its fullest measure and letting it corrode my feelings of love until they burn themselves into a bubbling tar of hate. Then I can survive it. That's when I'll be okay. I just have to kill the love for him, not myself.

So, I guess I'm off to commit a murder this weekend. Rest in peace, sweet love of mine. I wish you'd had a chance to flourish and thrive. But now I have to end you.

Brenda Gail

"Nobody in this whole great big world, no matter how far you go or how many people you meet, will ever love you as much as I do. You are my heart. I will always be proud of you. Nothing you say or do can change it."

Those are the words that stand out most clearly to me from the four-and-a-half hour cry-fest that was the conversation my Mom and I had the day I came out to her. In the years that followed, I certainly put that statement to the test as I ventured out into the world meeting all kinds of new people, learning who I was, and often dancing on the edge of a sword with no regard for my health or safety. None of it mattered to her. When I fell down, she was there to pick me up again, brush off the filth, and bandage whatever cuts and scrapes the world had given me.

Mom has always loved me so fiercely that I sometimes felt smothered by it. Her concern for me when it was clear I was in a bad situation felt stifling while my life managed to hold itself together, but so, so welcome each time the house of cards inevitably fell down around me. I suppose it's that way between lots of sons and their mothers, especially firstborn sons of very young mothers.

Even with so much love in her big, big heart for my little brother and me, Mom was never really able to love herself. We watched as she opened her heart, home, and bank account to undeserving men that treated her unkindly and took advantage of her need for love (or anything that passed for it) time after time after the passing of our step-father in the early 1990's. Her inherent generosity and kindness were repaid with theft, disloyalty, and emotional abuse. Over time, following some harsh truths from her sons, our mom flipped off the switch that had driven her out into the world in search of anyone who could give her the love she lacked for herself. Having almost recovered from a bankruptcy, she was injured at work and became physically unable to work, yet her case was contested by management and she had to fight for over a year through an attorney to get the surgery she needed to repair damage to her spine. By then, a number of other health issues had developed, she lost the house that she and my step-father built themselves from the ground up, and she quickly declined into a deep depression that prevented her from taking care of herself or her home.

Over the last the last ten years, I did my best to return the love she so readily gave to me when I was falling apart in my misspent youth. I frequently drove to visit her in Louisiana while I was living in Austin, TX so that I could get her to her doctors' appointments or meetings with her worker's compensation lawyer. I spent holidays with her when I could and sent her money and gifts when I couldn't be there in person. On more than one occasion, my brother and I took turns cleaning out the house she inherited from my grandmother, which she couldn't or wouldn't keep clean or uncluttered. She built around her a mess that I sometimes think represented what she felt she deserved to live in. Watching her give up on herself and growing more and more reclusive was heartbreaking for me, and I eventually moved back to Louisiana so that I could ensure that she was at least taking her medicine and keeping her appointments with the doctors for her chronic pain and her diabetes. But no matter how often I came to her and propped her back up, my mom no longer cared for herself and immediately fell back into the dark place she had resigned herself to.

For the last year, I stopped going to see my mom, telling my brother that it was too much, that I had tried in vain for too long, and that he needed to be more involved in trying to get her back on track. It had gotten to the point that I couldn't stay the night anymore for fear of my own health. Each time I left her, she would hug me hard and cry, and that left me an emotional wreck for days afterward. I eventually stopped going and started keeping in touch with her only by phone or text, while my little brother and his family took up the task of checking in on her and getting her through the last year's health crises.

My aunt, her sister, who lives next door to her, found Mom dead on her couch yesterday afternoon. Last night, I received the phone call from my sister-in-law letting me know that the one person in this great big world who would always love me - no matter what I said or did, no matter how little I sometimes deserved it, and no matter how poorly I often repaid it - was gone from me forever. I was her heart. I wish I had been able to love her enough for us both. I wish she had been able to be happy, and that she hadn't been made so afraid of the world that she closed herself off from its wonders or its possibilities. I wish that the defiant, adventurous spirit she nurtured in me had also remained within her so that she could have had the life she deserved. I wish that I could hit the rewind button and go back and change all the bad things that happened to her in her life. But most of all I wish I could hug her one more time and hear her tell me again how much she loves me and how proud of me she'll always be.

Rest in peace, Brenda Gail Hataway Murdock Prier. I love you.