What Comes After

“Punch me in the back, Nick!  Punch me!  Punch me in the back!  Why aren’t you punching me?!  Punch me in the back!”

These were the last words my grandmother spoke to me.  I was visiting her in the nursing home that had been housing her eventual death bed for the past six months.  This was my first visit in awhile.  The day was Thursday, the time was 1:30pm and I had been sitting next to her for about an hour while she slept.  Then she woke up, coughed violently, and asked me to punch her in the back.   At this point her mind was already gone.  She had hardly recognized anyone for weeks and had on multiple occasions asked out loud “Why does God hate me?  Why won’t he let me die?” 

I did not punch her in the back. 

She died two days later.

One week and one day after my visit, at her plain and simple funeral (“I was a plain and simple woman, and I want my funeral to be plain and simple”), I found out the last words she spoke to me were the last words she ever spoke.

“I want to thank you for coming to see Grandma the other day,” said my Aunt Marilyn (a Roseanne Arnold-esque near sixty woman who much prefers fart jokes to Bill Maher (and the one relative who spent nearly every moment with her mother during those final weeks of her life)).  “After you left, she never talked again.”

I nodded, pretending I wasn’t about to either A) ball my brains out or B) pass out.

“I truly believe she was waiting for her little Nicky to come visit her before she went.  You were always one of her favorite grandkids.”

Another nod was all I could manage.  Then I hastily excused myself to the bathroom and went through with option A mentioned above.  Kind of ridiculous that I decided the bathroom was the apropriate place to lose it, since it was, after all, a funeral, and fifty other people were all losing it around me.  For some reason that was the place to go.

Six hours (two glasses of wine, three small roast beef sandwiches, some chips and salsa, and five Crock Pot mini meatballs) later I found myself walking around my neighborhood thinking about something I think about all the time…

Death.  And what comes after it.

That night I compiled a list of characteristics I hope make up the afterlife.  Basically, if I were the lead engineer designing the set of plans for post mortal living, the following things would exist. 

(NOTE: I currently have no religious affiliation, so the word heaven will not be used to describe the afterlife I speak of.  However, this afterlife is the good afterlife.  And, of course, I’m assuming that I will one day qualify for this particular afterlife.  We’ll see how that pans out….)

1) Choose Your Own Adventure decision making  

I still want difficult decisions to exist post mortem…but with a catch.  I want every decision laid out in front of me the way they were laid out in the Choose Your Own Adventure books.  Remember those books?  If not, they were books designed to make the reader feel like they themselves determine the outcome of the story.  Sort of like The Never Ending Story (without the strangely androgenous Atreyu character).  In each book, there would be five or so pages of story ending with a big decision the main character (referred to as “you”) must make followed by multiple choices at the bottom of the page.  It would say something similar to the following:

 ”If you decide to take the time machine to the year 1600, go to page 10.  If you would like to go to 100 b.c. turn to page 30.  If you do not want to time travel and wish to go home, turn to page 15.”

At this point, the reader would choose a route and read through it, making more decisions along the way.  One set of decisions would end happily, one unhappily, etc.   

You get the idea.

My favorite part of those books was that, no matter what decision I made (good or bad), I could always go back and read through the other options.  I want the afterlife to operate like this.  I want to face big decisions knowing I can always go back and try it again.  If I decide to walk into the mysterious cave that ends up containing a grizzly bear that eats me, I can backtrack, choose not to enter the cave, and eventually find the happy outcome (and yes, I know that being eaten by a grizzly bear in the afterlife would not matter since I would already be dead).  I hate that mortal living does not have this backtracking perk, so, naturally, it should be existent after this world. 

2) Love and Sex (but not without challenge)

Sex is a mortal concept, but I don’t want to lose it in the next world.  I’m sure when I’m dead, existing wherever I exist then, I’ll look back at how naive this is.  

“I wanted to have sex here?” I’d ask myself from beyond the grave in the same way I now look at photographs of myself in sixth grade and wonder how I could have thought jean shorts were cool.  “Sex is nothing compared to [INSERT MIND BLOWINGLY PLEASURABLE ACTIVITY THAT EXISTS IN THE AFTERLIFE THAT THE HUMAN MIND CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO COMPREHEND HERE]!  What an idiot I was!”

But since I’m still a living human who thinks he cannot exist even spiritually without sex (funny because I don’t get much of it (at all, really (ever))), I don’t want to lose it completely when I die. 

That being said, there still needs to be some sort of challenge to get sex in the afterlife.  One should not be able to get whatever kind of ass they want whenever they want it.  If that were the situation, everyone up there would be doing it all the time.  Constantly.  It would be an eternal Ron Jeremy movie (or, to be more current, a totally free, constantly updated eternal porn website with no incriminating pop ups or viruses).  That would just be bad.

So sex should be earned in much the same way it is on Earth.  Wit, intelligence, charisma, charm, and other tools used in pre-sex person to person exchanges here should still need to be utilized correctly to gain sexual success there.  Isn’t that a big part of what makes sex great anyway?  The pre-game?  For me it is.  And for my afterlife it should be too.

Now, before I get accused of sounding shallow, placing immense importance on intercourse, let me say that the above stated concept also applies to romantic relationships.  Romance should still exist.  Emotions should still be important.  There should still be dating in the after life.  But, like with sex, a person should not automatically be able to get involved with anyone they want.  The challenge needs to be there, but with one extremely important stipulation…

Acts of emotional, romantic comedy ending inspired heroism should NEVER be turned down.  Never.  Someone running in desparation across long distances in the rain, through multiple car pile ups, pits of fire, and hundreds of other obstacles to give a long winded, confessional, ripped right from the soul speech expressing exactly how they really feel about someone should always yield positive results.  Always.  Basically, the writing team for my afterlife would at least partially consist of Cameron Crowe (who would also be in charge of the soundtrack), Nora Ephron, and Woody Allen.

3) The Library Of Answers

I will live my whole life without learning the truth behind thousands and thousands of things.  There isn’t much that blows my mind as much as that thought.  That is one of life’s great injustices.  We will never know the truth about everything. 

Until we die, that is (hopefully).

I want there to be a Library Of Answers in my afterlife.  A huge building where anyone can enter to find out the absolute truth concerning any subject they were ever confused about on Earth. 

My initial research at said library will contain (but will not be limited to) the following things:

• Who really killed JFK
• The truth about aliens (and what’s happening on all of those other planets)
• What Stonehenge was all about
• How true were the things Joseph Smith claimed?  Did he really see an angel and all that?  Did orders really come from on high for polygamy to be instituted?
• Was GoodWill Hunting really written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck?  Or are the script doctor conspiracy theories really true?
• Biblical events (I’m sure I’ll find out the truth about Christianity pretty fast, though.  I doubt if I’ll have to go to the Library Of Answers to find out if Jesus was a real man.)
• The true age of planet Earth
• What became of Amelia Earhart?
• Why yawning seems to be contagious
• Who the Zociac Killer is
• Why TV shows like Saved By The Bell, Dawson’s Creek, and Full House are all so strangely addictive despite how horrible they really are.
• Who was unfaithful to who while they were alive (I want a list of all cheaters)
• What really went down during the 2000 presidential election
• Why we’re really in Iraq right now
• What kind of weasely, deceitful things American political leaders have really done (well beyond the ones we actually find out about)
• If and when the world (Earth) is going to end

I want answers that I will never get while I’m alive.  It would be a great disapointment if the afterlife did not deliver them. 

Maybe that’s what my hell would be.  Hmmm.

4) Comfort and Contentment

There should be no uneasiness, no sadness, no anxiety, and no negativity that cannot be instantly erased.  There should be true peace from the bad things we all deal with here.  All detailed desires aside, peace is all I really hope for after I pass.

And if anyone deserves the kind of peace I speak of, it’s Mae Nelson (my grandmother). 

I may not have punched you in the back on the third to last day of your life, but I will be thinking of you and wishing you well in the great unknown for the rest of mine.