It’s a really hard question for me.

Sometimes I hope that loved ones don’t look over me. I mess up too much- I fall down too often, and I don’t want to make them ashamed, embarrassed to have known me. I don’t want them to see me weak, to see me waste my life and falter in whatever course I’ve set. It disrespects their memory. Sometimes I’d get very upset thinking someone I cared about was watching me burn my life away. It would kill me to think someone that meant the world to me was watching me wreck myself.

Then I realized that helped me- the idea that I wanted to make them proud- those who are gone, and those who are still alive. When I can’t live for myself, when I can’t try to heal for myself, I tell myself I need to live for them and heal for them. It’s what they would have wanted me to do- not wallow in my suffering, but to try and carve out a life for myself.

Are they looking over me? I have no way of ever knowing. If it helps me in my darker hours, then I’ll tell myself to think someone in a peaceful place is looking out for me. Maybe I’m kidding myself, maybe I’m not. I wonder if our spirits find a new home when our physical body dies. I wonder if we have spirits. I wonder a lot.

When I feel really alone and worthless I look up some videos of the Northern Lights, and it makes me feel like they’re still here. The Northern Lights has always looked like spirits to me. Everyone finds comfort in different things.

Even if they’re not watching me, if there is no form of afterlife- no loved one is ever truly dead; they have touched my life so profoundly and helped me work towards becoming a better person that the memory of them will never truly be gone. I can only hope that knowing me somehow helped them while they were on the earth, and that I made a small difference in their lives.