We were talking about love, we being my family, at a funeral, which is where we congregate too often now, and my mother brought up the memories of people she has loved, in the family and out of it, and feeling their presence, or rather not feeling their presence, which she says she hasn’t felt since these people passed, and she wondered if they miss her wherever they are, if they are anywhere now, and if they missed her then where are they now, and what purpose does a love serve if that love just ends when the person ends. I don’t know how to answer these questions, I barely know how to think about them or if it’s wise or helpful to think about them in the first place. 

The facile answer is of course yes that love was meaningful, even a memory can sustain you in some way, what would a life without love be worth. It is equally facile to go full Epic Atheist and say no it’s not meaningful, people are just sacks of chemicals and impulses and love is no more mystical than the bonding of one atom with another, or a star collapsing into a black hole, at the end of the day we’re all just physics in action. 

If an answer exists at all that answer is ambiguous, which does my mother no good. Her mind is either/or, always has been, perhaps a product of a Catholic upbringing, though having long since given up that faith she sometimes says she’s a victim of such an upbringing, because it has no known antidote, if you got it there’s no way to un-get it. To my mom things are good or bad, right or wrong, this or that, she won’t even watch a movie if she knows it has an unclear ending, the ending doesn’t have to be happy, it just has to resolve to a decisive FIN. Gray offends her. And so does not knowing something, and knowing that it is impossible to know.

There better be an answer, she will say, meaning to the great question of life, the universe and everything, with the implication that such an answer will be revealed in the great beyond. There better be an answer, she will say, or I’m gonna be pissed. And I, who am not sure there is a question to be asked let alone an answer, will tell her, gently because I don’t want to argue over something I am just as likely to be wrong about, I will tell her, If there is no answer you won’t know. And she will respond, No, I’m gonna know, I’m gonna know.