On Friday night, my husband Nick and I went to see Eric Clapton in concert. Nick got the tickets for us as an early birthday gift for me, as my birthday is coming up on September 26th. It was a great concert, and he is a very talented musician.
However, several factors made the night challenging, and a bit “off.”
The seats we were in were up VERY high in the balcony, and in the exact middle of the row. We got there a few minutes late, due to lack of trains going into Boston, combined with my work schedule, and so we had to be those annoying people who walk into a crowded theatre DURING the show in the dark, going: “excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, sorry, sorry, sorry!” Everyone gets totally annoyed (rightly so) at having to stand up and let us by, and then they hate us the rest of the evening.
The idea of being those people, plus the idea of my vertigo acting up because I hate heights, sent me into a place of panic in my brain, the minute we sat down. My heart started racing and I was having trouble focusing. Then, the “sitting down” part proved to be challenging, as the seats themselves were super tiny, and I am the exact opposite of super tiny. My hips started digging into the sides of the seat, and my long legs and knees literally had nowhere to go, so my knees were pretty much up against the people directly in front of us, and I literally couldnt move. I had to sit perfectly still, because there was zero space to move. This caused massive cramping in my legs and hips. To top off this experience, the amount of pot-smoking that goes on at an Eric Clapton concert was … well … a LOT. There was a large group of 10 or 15 people a couple rows in front of us that were passing around joints or whatever to one another. Every time they took a hit, it wafted up at us, and pretty much right into my face, making me cough, and probably getting a serious contact high. In any case, I felt severely uncomfortable physically, and extremely fragile and shaky emotionally.
Then Clapton played the song “Tears in Heaven”. For those who don’t know, the song was written by Clapton about his son, who fell out a high-rise window when he was very young, and died tragically. So he starts singing it, and of course its emotional and everyone is holding up their phone flashlights and some are softly crying or putting their arms around their loved ones and things such as this.
As for me, I started wincing and feeling even more awkward in my too small seat and in my too large body. This song has always made me feel weird, or uncomfortable, or even a bit angry, and/or other feelings that sometimes I cant really fully identify. As he is singing it live and as Im getting yet another unwanted hit of the weed all up in my eyeballs and nose, I started really listening to the lyrics. Then I got kind of annoyed, then incredibly sad, and then I started to feel myself crying. At first, it was that silent cry that sometimes happens, where your face just gets all watery-like and you make no sound. But then it turned into a more vocal cry, where I was almost to the point of hyperventilating. And as I was trying to get my breathing back, I started to figure out WHY I dislike this song so much. It’s because I don’t believe a word of it. It’s because I feel anger and jealousy toward those who believe that all will be well and there will be “no more tears” in Heaven. It’s because I don’t believe in a place called Heaven at all. I believe in energy, which cannot be destroyed, but in that moment listening to that song – the not knowing of what that energy might turn into or not turn into, suddenly and all at once terrified me and made me consumed with sadness.
And he kept singing:
“Would you know my name, if I saw you in Heaven,
would it be the same, if I saw you in Heaven,
would you hold my hand, if I saw you in Heaven,
would you help me stand, if I saw you in Heaven,
Beyond the door, there’s peace, I’m sure,
And I know there’ll be no more
tears in Heaven.”
Most people just think this is a sad song because its about his son, and that the sadness will end once he is in Heaven with his son one day. But listening and watching him sing it live made me realize how much I REALLY don’t believe in the concept of Heaven, and I don’t think I believe that I will “see Don” after I die. I don’t know if my energy will be a conscious thing floating around in the universe, and that I will be able to feel his floating around out there too.
And sitting up there in those high balcony seats, in the midst of my massive contact high; I started thinking about how right now, here, today, while Im alive on earth; I DO feel Don – I feel his presence around me SO OFTEN, and I feel like he’s a part of my life, and I do things like talk to him and honor him to keep him a part of my life. And I do those things because it helps me greatly to feel like he is always still here, and a part of things. It helps me to have and to FEEL that connection between us. Its also important to me that people don’t forget him, and that his life mattered, and that I can do things to keep his legacy alive.
But when I’m dead one day, nobody will be doing that anymore, and so he will REALLY be dead then, AND we never had kids, so nobody will be keeping MY memory alive probably, and so I’ll be dead too, and what if it really is just NOTHING after death? Like, no heaven, but also what if I can’t feel him or FEEL ANYTHING ever again? Suddenly, sitting there in those high seats that felt as close to “Heaven” as I will ever get, the idea of just one day NOT existing anymore sent me into panic.
Being alive, I can have emotions and see and feel beauty and music (and enjoy other people’s weed unwillingly), and so many other things. But I don’t know – I started crying hard and trying to stop crying hard, because he was singing “beyond the door there’s peace, I’m sure”, and I kept thinking how lovely it must be to feel like you know that, and to feel like that’s true and how comforting, and WHY CANT I BELIEVE THAT so I can be comforted, instead of this feeling of overwhelming DREAD and TERROR that I was suddenly feeling?
The idea that once we die, all the fear and all the pain will be instantly gone and that so many people believe this and accept this and find comfort in this – I do not believe this AND I dont find comfort in it. I don’t want to be dead. I want LIFE. And I dont know what happens after we die – nobody knows. But I know that here on earth, while I am alive, I feel Don’s presence all around me, often, and its comforting. What if all that stops, and what if everything just stops, when we die? How is everyone just okay with that? Why isnt everyone else in a constant state of panic thinking about the idea that one day, they will just be nothing? How could anything be more terrifying than that, and where the hell did these people get this weed? It is STROOOOOOOOOOOONG!!!!!!
It felt like losing him all over again somehow, sitting there, or knowing that I will lose him when I lose all consciousness and awareness. I felt terrified to die, in a way I haven’t felt scared to die in a long, long time. It also felt as if the song was nine-thousand verses long, and like it would never end.
I feel Don with me today, here on earth. Its not the same as having him here for real, obviously. But its something, and I dont care whether or not its real because it FEELS real to me when I feel it, and it helps, and its comforting.
I don’t want to die and then NEVER FEEL THAT AGAIN. I don’t want for nobody to be making sure that Don Shepherd is never forgotten, or that I’m never forgotten. Who will make sure that my life mattered? Most likely nobody. If my parents are also gone and maybe Nick is gone too and I have no kids, and if my brother is still here and I die first, he isn’t really the type that will make his life’s purpose to make sure I have a legacy. I don’t feel like there will be peace when I die. I feel scared of death and of no longer being alive, and I think that’s why I almost live furiously and ferociously for the both of us, because Don is stuck being dead and doesn’t get to experience life anymore.
ALL OF THIS hit me, as the potent hit of weed also “hit me” on its latest pass-around, and I became filled with panic and fear. Not only about the whole “turning into nothing when I die” concept, but also, we had to not only be the annoying people who arrive late and sit in the middle – we also had to be the annoying people who leave early (because Boston trains only run until 11pm which is the dumbest thing ever and they should be ashamed to call themselves a real city) and make everyone get up a second time.
So, as all of these thoughts consumed me, and the strongest marijuana in the galaxy wafted into the air and into my lungs, I thought to myself: “and THIS is why I do not enjoy getting high.” Most people just get really hungry and they somehow mellow out and feel relaxed. Me? My already anxiety-ridden self becomes filled with more anxiety, panic, and paranoia about there not being a Heaven, and how being dead and no longer having awareness or LIFE, is way more depressing while maybe being forcibly high and sitting in a balcony that feels just high enough to reach Heaven, while listening to someone sing about that place called Heaven that you don’t really believe in.
Sometimes I get exhausted by my own brain, and wish I didnt have to think these deep thoughts all the time, and could just simply enjoy a concert that comes with free weed. But that just isn’t me. My apologies to my husband Nick, who got us the tickets. I love you, and I still had a great time, even though I’m a weirdo and my mind went to messed up places.
p.s. I’m also not a fun drinker. I get super emotional after two glasses of wine, and start sobbing and telling everyone that I miss them when they are standing right there, saying “why do you miss me? Im standing right here.” And then I respond by saying stuff like: yeah, but one day, you will be dead, or you might move away, and we wont keep in touch like we mean to, and so Ill miss you, and I am already missing you now just thinking about it.”
And then I fall asleep. Which is a lot like being dead.
Apparently.
Unless you believe in Heaven.
I need a nap.