My Grandmother on my Mom’s side of the family once said to me, “You only die once. I will never be cremated.” Naturally, as a 14-year-old boy, this thought stuck with me. This year my best friend, Grandpa Jim passed away. It has seriously affected me this year.

I watched him suffer a long and painful death every day in the hospital for almost a month. He didn’t deserve that. He should have died a beautiful death. Short and sweet.

If I had known that after saying goodbye to him on his death bed was the last time that I would physically see him, then I would have stayed. But, I am glad about the choice that I made to walk away and not see his final moments. He will always be alive to me because he remains.

His ashes were buried at the Lakewood Cemetary and I miss him so much that when I was bouncing around this winter, I found a place two blocks from the cemetery so I could visit him every week.

People have their choice of life after death and it is a scary thing to think about. Remember now, the only thing guaranteed in life is death and the concept of departure is a beautiful thing.

Visualize being enclosed in a golden coffin, then encased in a golden sarcophagus, maybe even being memorialized in a mausoleum or pyramid. We always over look the fact that death is a celebrated thing in this world.

A popular idea of death is reincarnation, but being reborn doesn’t always mean that you will come back as a chicken, lizard or panther. I believe that it means that you will break down into trillions of little atoms that will scatter all over the world, furthering yourself to become anything and everything.

I never understood why people would want to have their ashes scattered into the ocean, the Grand Canyon or even Fenway Park until I saw my Grandpa in a tin can.

Here is my final thought:

I have been watching a lot of ‘Game of Thrones’ and I am infatuated with Melissandre. She has sold me on the Lord of Light. Now, stay with me now because this is quite the left turn.

Hypothetically when I depart, I want my children or my loved ones to take my beaten body to the fire and then take my ashes to the Mississipi River. I want them to stand on the western side and throw them into the river.

There will be seven billion pieces of my atoms floating in that river that will travel to cities, reservoirs and they will distribute into the earth, the water we drink, into the air and the food we eat.

When people drink that water, they will drink a part of me and I will be a part of them.

My tiny little atoms will one day be apart of everyone. All seven billion of them for all seven billion people.

This is why we are all one in the same, made up of atoms, water, and mass.

Henceforth my interpretation of the theory of reincarnation and why people decide to scatter their ashes.

This is why we all remain.

Remember, “The Zos Knows”. 

-David Zosel

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