Once, during a visit predominated by discussions of illness, injury, and aging, a Mormon aunt of mine said, "Won't it be nice after the Resurrection, when our bodies are perfect?" A strained silence followed. I think my aunt realized from my mom's stunned expression that she didn't believe in the Resurrection of their childhood faith. What stunned my mom--as she told me later--was that she hadn't known this before. As she said to me later, "Wasn't the fact that I left the Mormon church a clue that maybe I no longer believed in it?"
(The only time I've seen her more speechless was when she realized an adult nephew had no idea she wasn't an active and faithful Mormon. I guess his parents hadn't filled him in on Aunt Linda the Heretic, which is why googling one's realatives is a good idea, but I digress.)
Anyway, amid that strained silence, I quipped "We Sillitoes don't resurrect. We reincarnate." Everyone laughed, and someone, thankfully, changed the subject.
Reincarnation is the only afterlife that makes sense to me, though I've decided maybe it's optional and not all souls opt in. After all, it seems just as wrong for me to impose my afterlife on other people as it is for them to impose their afterlife on me.
One reason I believe in reincarnation is....well, my phobias. The two things I have always feared most are drowning and being set on fire. When I got older, I realized these were common fates for witches and heretics. Coincidence? I don't think so. (I'm also claustrophobic, but I chalk that up to my ancestors who were miners. After you've witnessed a cave-in or two, I figure, claustrophobia gets hard-wired into the DNA.)
Another phobia? Trains, specifically box cars. My mom tried to blame that on her making me watch a lot of movies about the Holocaust, but I've been afraid of box cars as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, in a car, watching a train pass, I didn't count cars. I just wondered why all my instincts were screaming "Danger, run!" I figured it out, though, the first time I watched a movie about the Holocaust. As the Nazis started herding people into box cars, filling them until there was barely room to stand, then nailed the box cars shut, and sent them off to Auschwitz, I understood not only my fear of trains, but also my wariness of showering, particularly in groups.
My mom believed me, but also thought that was a lifetime we didn't share. Until we saw "War and Rememberance." Now, you need to know that my mom believed understanding and illuminating evil
was part of her soul work, both in this life and in past lives. She had studied all kinds of horrors from serial killers to pedophiles to the Holocaust to 9/11. Consequently, she had very thick skin. Still, as "War and Rememberance" reached a scene where a character entered the gas chamber, my mom turned gray and asked me to pause it. She took a few deep breaths, then reached for some chocolate.
I said, "It was the praying amid the screaming that got you, wasn't it?"
She nodded and admitted maybe we'd shared that life, too.
Once, during what seemed to be a random conversation about various countries, I said, "I don't like Spain. It creeps me out."
"Me, too," Mom said. She thought about it, then said, "Of course, our Incan life was pretty good until the Spanish conquistadors showed up."
"Not to mention the Inquisition," I reminded her.
Mom shuddered. "Now that was a particularly bad life."
"Ok," I said. as if ticking off an imaginary list. "No vacations to Spain for us."
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