I’ve always thought that a lot of the things that humans do concerning death have always been for the benefit of the living, not the dead. This includes physical things that have to be done, and also the spiritual implications of their soul's leanings at the time of death. Everything that comes afterward, the people who carry the matter on their head the most are the living.
When people die, the living are the ones who bother about giving them a ‘befitting’ burial because it’s what ‘they would want’. However, the people who would supposedly want those things are dead. And they don’t care if they’re buried like kings or paupers. They just get buried. Hell, they don’t even care if they’re not buried at all because they’re dead and no longer in this world. The living are the ones who get to bother about such pesky little details.
In the same way, when a person is a victim of a violent crime and they die, survivors usually call for justice because they want the victims to ‘rest in peace’, but in reality, they just want closure. They simply want to know that the people responsible for taking their loved ones from this world are made to pay dearly for it. They’re the ones who won’t be able to rest in peace if the killers of their loved ones were still walking around, having a good time. The dead would definitely still be dead, without a care about justice. Because let’s face it, only the living get justice. There’s no justice when you’re dead.
And for the spiritual aspect, I also say that it’s mostly to our benefit as well. It’s easier to accept that our families and loved ones are in heaven, having a good time with God and the angels. They were good people, and they deserve to have eternal life with God. Imagining them suffering in hell would be very difficult and hurtful for you. In the same way, it would be hard to imagine a terrible person who has done terrible things in heaven. It’s easier to imagine them rotting and suffering in hell. But the mere idea of them chilling in paradise is just painful.
And that’s how it is, we’re simply doing these things for ourselves. I’m not saying that they’re not important or that they hold no significance. They do. However, we have to accept that every single thing that comes after death is simply for the living. To make them feel better about the tragedy, to make it easier to cope with the loss. If not, we might never be able to move on. Because as long as you believe that the dead are in a better place, or they’ve gotten the justice they deserve, only then will you be able to close that chapter of your life and move on.
Well, we are who we are.
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