Life Waves Buh-bye

Death comes in threes. On March 3, 2023, inside Boston’s John P. Bedlow Memorial Hospital, the flatlined trifecta included an atheist, a Muslim, and a born-again Christian.

Coming in first–winning the 'Here Today, Gone Tomorrow Sweepstakes'–was Roger Douglas Macklemore, who died right on average, 77.28 years of age according to insurance actuary tables, in his sleep when his congested heart finally whispered wistfully, “fuck it, I’m done.”

Rog had a great life, was the typical Boomer: protested the Vietnam War, marched for peace, wore a t-shirt that read Question Everything, smoked weed in the 60s; became a self-absorbed, money-grubbing coke vacuum in the 80s. Partied, enjoyed live rock shows, got laid a lot. As he matured, Roger got married and an office job with perks, had kids and grandkids, vacationed in the Caribbean, supported charities of his choice, ate a lot of red meat.

The doubter didn't believe in a supreme being or in an afterlife any more than he believed the promises of Republican presidents. To him, seeing, touching, feeling, hearing, smelling were the only way to authenticate something–-everything else was imagined bullshit meant to control the masses. Why waste time in faith, when imagined bullshit can’t be proven?

His philosophy proved correct: after he exhaled his final breath, Roger Douglas Macklemore drifted into nothingness for a few earthly hours; after that, that nothingness drifted into a deeper, more nothing, nothingness.

Placing was Mulmood Hamza Badawi, 66, an orthodox believer in Allah, who died two hours and a few minutes later from sepsis.

Yet Mulmood didn’t feel dead because in Islamic belief, death is seen not as the termination of life, rather as the continuation of life in another form. God has made this worldly life as a test and a preparation ground for the afterlife; and with death this worldly life comes to an end. Thus, every person has only one chance to prepare themselves for the life to come where God will resurrect and judge every individual and will entitle them to rewards or punishment, based on their good or bad deeds.

The newly-arrived had just entered Jannah, the Islamic paradise of prestige and pleasure, where the Quran says the saved "will have whatever they wish for, forever" (Q.25:16). He will now and through eternity enjoy the rewards after committing to a drab earthly life that was deprived of any vice or enjoyment or merriment.

Mulmood, physically a lump beneath a Bedlow hospital bed sheet, was fleet and flying, a free spirit, as he entered, as promised, a garden that has two flowing springs, and trees with two types of every fruit. Underneath the branches, sat maidens (houris) of modest gaze, who no human has ever touched before, reclining on green cushions and splendid carpets, and attended to by servant-boys with the spotless appearance similar to protected pearls. Is there any better reward for a life lived void of carnal stimulation than this?

86-year old Annabelle May Taylor came in a distant third, just before midnight. The old gal died of pneumonia with a smile under her oxygen mask because here comes son, Jimmy, who died of a brain tumor at age seven back in ‘82, looking like he did before the disease turned his young brain into a rotten cantaloupe. Her faith, which had peaked and faltered over the decades, had been rewarded.

Annabelle was raised a Methodist and was faithful to Jesus—until He and His Father decided to enjoy watching Jimmy suffer and die without raising a Holy Finger to cure him. For the next several torturous years, she gave Both the unholy finger, and wrote them off as worthless.

Yet after a seven-year baptism of booze, powders, pills, and therapy, and none of them relieving her anguish either, she found the Holy Trinity again in a homegrown church on Mulberry Street that used to be a furniture store. Annabelle—in between the Hallelujah!s and the Praise the Lord!s, was assured of seeing her son again—he just went up early because God needed another rose in His garden—which she came to fervently believe.

After 41 years, 172 days of mourning, her belief was coming true. She was young; Jimmy was healthy and alert and strong, leaping towards her through the green neon knee-high grass that seemed to sing. After all those years of Supreme anger, doubt, and blasphemy, the whole Heaven thing seemed as real to her as her son was right now, and forever. 'Our long-awaited embrace is shortly away!' she muttered blissfully.

A recent study by Dr. Ajmal Zemmar of the University of Louisville and colleagues throughout the world, entitled, “Enhanced Interplay of Neuronal Coherence and Coupling in the Dying Human Brain,” published in 'Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience', suggests that our brain may remain active and coordinated during, and even after the transition to death, for a few hours longer, and may be programmed to orchestrate the whole ordeal through past life experiences and religious dictates.

"We measured 900 seconds of brain activity around the time of death and set a specific focus to investigate what happened in the 30 seconds before and after the heart stopped beating,” said   Zemma, who organized the study. “Just before and after the heart stopped working, we saw changes in a specific band of neural oscillations, so-called gamma oscillations, but also in others such as delta, theta, alpha and beta oscillations.”

Brain oscillations are more commonly known as brain waves. They are patterns of rhythmic activity normally present in living human brains. The different types of oscillations, including gamma, are involved in high-cognitive functions, such as concentrating, dreaming, meditation, memory retrieval, information processing and conscious perception, just like those associated with memory flashbacks.

“Through generating brain oscillations involved in memory retrieval, the brain may be playing a last recall of important life events just before, during, and hours after we die, similar to the ones reported in near-death experiences,” Zemmar speculated.

Within a few hours after their deaths, after all their brain waves had faded away, Mulmood Badawi and Annelbelle Taylor, like Rog Macklemore, drifted into nothingness; after that, that nothingness drifted into a deeper, more nothing, nothingness.

By CraigE

From: United States