The Atheist's Comfort

And this is one of those few times that I struggle with being an atheist. I don't struggle with my conviction of beliefs, or lack thereof, but with the very chilling emptiness that comes with the memories of someone who has passed away. When you cry and when you miss them, you want so desperately to believe they can see you mourning them, or at the very least FEEL it and sense it. You want them next to you, their ghostly hand on yours. You want to share in this uniquely personal yet shared grief. This is where the crux of religion lies. It's a comfort to explain away some of the mysteries surrounding THE greatest unknown human passage. Death. To believe in an afterlife and a spiritual existence not entirely separate from our own living existence, is to be able to hang onto something more tangible than a memory. Something more comforting than a living, lingering scent or essence, that will eventually disappear as time goes on. It's the expectation of meeting again. It's not having to completely say goodbye. It's having a connection between two worlds that you want so badly to coexist.

Faith.

It's tempting and endearing.

For me, though, it's not that it's not enough, it's just not in my realm of reality. It's as believable to me as Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. I'm not a one time believer gone nonbeliever. I just never was. I was never indoctrinated with even the idea of religion-theism OR atheism.
So, when I look around my room crying, staring at the walls and wishing that this dead soul were leaning against one of those walls watching me, smiling, perhaps with some otherworldly wisdom and empathy, I have to shake myself out of the trance. Deep down I know I am not being observed, but it almost physically hurts to get ripped out of that moment that I would kind of rather be caught up in.