One of my wishes when it comes to losing Erik from the earthly plane is for him to “have it all” there. Unfortunately, the afterlife is not 100% perfect, not the panacea we all hope for. What he misses is not earth shattering, but, as a mother, I want only the best for my son. Read on.
Me: Okay. What do you miss most about earthly life, Erik?
(Pause)
Jamie (giggling and blushing): I can’t type it out?
Me: No, no, no. Just say it! It’s R-rated, people! Cover your children’s ears!
Erik: I know the right thing to say is family. In all honesty, joking aside, besides my penis, I miss my family the most.
Me: Oh, no!
Jamie: It’s hard to tell when Erik’s pushing the line or if he’s really sobering up to the answer. Sobering up to the answer, he misses people, the connections and relationships, the most–with the people he’s supposed to be with.
Me: Well why is it different? Why should it be different?
Erik: That’s the point. It shouldn’t be that different, but people don’t believe—people on Earth—believe that death is the end. They don’t believe that you can belly up to some table and actually discover a way to talk to people in the afterlife. Life continues. You are not on this short little cycle.
(Pause)
Jamie: Oh, I guess he’s just speaking to the room, because he just turned away and said, “I can’t wait until people learn this fucking shit. Just to learn that life doesn’t begin and end; it’s continuous. (Throwing his arm out) And it goes and it goes and it goes and it goes.”
Me: So death is like dropping your body like a suit of clothes; that’s it.
Erik: Ta da! Mm hm. Yes.
Me: Okay. So what part of relationships do you miss? Do you miss the physical aspect of hugs? I mean, you and I have a relationship, but there are certain things missing, obviously.
Erik: C’mon, man. Are you putting words in my mouth?
Me: Yes, I am.
Erik: But I do miss—it’s the tangible, the contact that you have hand to hand. I dunno.
Jamie: Aw, I love this. His voice just drops like a real soft tone.
Erik: I dunno. I just want people to take time…
(Pause)
Jamie: He’s pausing.
(Pause)
Erik: To physically feel, you know, what is the texture of the curtain like? What is, you know, the softness of your sweetheart’s skin, how does their hair feel? I don’t know why people are choosing to be more independent and pull away from that, like snuggling isn’t good or something?
Being an extremely affectionate mother, I used to snuggle with my children all the time. Still do. They find it annoying when I still beg for them to sit in my lap, so I’m surprised to hear that Erik misses it.
Erik: We really—
Jamie (laughing): He’s funny.
Erik: —should start a campaign that snuggling saves lives.
Me: Snuggling saves!
Erik: Snuggling saves whether it’s with your pet, with your child—
Ah ha!
Erik: —your sweetheart. Snuggling saves lives. That contact that you have, you can’t replace it. When you let go and you’re in the afterlife, you’re an energetic body, and granted, you gain so much, but you do lose that physical body. Now what can that physical body do, right? Touch, resist, hold on to things. It can eat. It can shit.
Jamie and I laugh.
Me: I’m sure you don’t miss that.
Erik: Nah, not really. I definitely don’t miss constipation.
Jamie and I laugh even harder.
Me: I don’t think anybody would.
How did we get here? Should we pause for a Dulcolax commercial?
Me: Maybe the Activia people—(I sing the Activia jingle.)
Jamie: He was singing that, too!
Erik: It’s so contagious. I would tell people, you know, kind of my personal advice while you’re living is touch, reach out, hold someone, pay attention to what it physically feels like, cuz the emotions, you can continue to have those, and you can continue to have conversations. It’ll translate different, because you’re not looking at that person’s face, and you’re not physically touching them. You’re energetically touching them; you’re emotionally touching them; you’re mentally touching them, but all of this doesn’t require the physical body and the senses that we experience that don’t pertain to the physical body—
(Pause)
Jamie: I argued with him and said, ‘I think all senses pertain to the physical body.’
Erik: You know what the fuck I mean. Reaching out and really making sure that it’s real, right? You’ll tend to dismiss them. You don’t give them the same validity and strength and power that you would with another one. And (poignant pause) I wouldn’t want to see anyone that I know, that I’ve currently met on Earth, have that regret when they come here about not hugging someone enough or not remembering what the dirt felt like beneath their feet. That’s ridiculous. This is everything you can do right now, cost-free.
Me: That’s true, and I think that physical touch also evokes emotions, and that gets to the root that we are emotional beings. It seems like here, we mostly just think. We don’t feel physically, and we don’t feel emotionally as much as we should.
Erik: I know. We need to—here’s another line of T-shirts. (Jamie fumbles horribly on the word “T-shirts” by saying “Ter-sheets.)
Me (giggling) Ter-sheets! I like that.
Jamie (laughing): Ter-sheets! I translate verbatim. It’s terrible. (Pause) Unless he gets to the dirty words and then he makes me pause.
Erik: Another line of T-shirts is. “I am an emotional being.” Drop the “human.”
I think most people would either run away from you or run to you with a hankie if you wore that.
(Pause)
Jamie: Aw, he’s just kind of ranting right now. He’s talking about science and doctors and there are articles published and discoveries, all these things.
Erik: They can now say that your first reaction against whatever it is emotional, then it’s physical, and then it’s your thought. So, what the fuck is wrong with us that we always think that thought comes first? Holy shit. We’re missing two huge reactions that have already occurred, choose to black them out and ignore them and go straight to the thought process which is the last fucking thing that happens! And we give it more energy, more value, more control and then later on, we realize emotionally we were crushed, and now we have to be in therapy for a really long time and fix ourselves, and we wish we would have reacted a different way. But yet you’re not changing the process of you, your understanding of the process—you’re still latching onto what you’re thinking, and you’re not practicing identifying what you’re feeling. Got to identify—
Jamie: He’s got his little hands in fists, and he’s hitting his legs [to the beat of each word].
Erik: You’ve got to identify what you’re feeling! That’s it! That’s the answer to most of the shit you’re asking for.
Me: Emotionally honesty for yourself and others.
Erik: Yes.
Me: That seems to be your number one rant. It’s very important.
Erik: Mom, it’s—
Jamie (giggling): “Mom,” I love when he says that.
Erik: Mom, it is the foundation for anything that you ask. Anything!
Just a head’s up. I will not be able to post tomorrow as I will be having a very long day. It’ll be a great time to read through or revisit those archives though!
