You can't take it with you...

For the first time, I am including a disclaimer on my blog. This entry deals with death, but in a totally ridiculous way. I am a big fan (if fan is the right word... maybe follower is better in this case) of the blog Keep Believing, where a wife and mother is grappling with her husband's impending death from cancer, and I in no way intend to diminish their struggle, or the losses of anyone reading, by joking about death and heaven. This conversation really took place (yes we are that pathetic), and our ways of dealing with death (or every other damn subject) is to joke about it. So, read it... don't read it. Just don't take it seriously enough to email me complaints about how I am disrespectful and evil. I already knew that.

So... let the ridiculousness begin!

My friend Lori and I were discussing some really deep topics yesterday. One of them was what happens after you die. Now, this gets pretty deep, so be ready. Deep thoughts a comin'.

The conversation started because we were both complaining about our shared fatness. Now, I personally don't give a crap about Lori's fatness, because my fatness so far surpasses her fatness that if we our plane crashed on a frozen mountain top, I would totally be the one eaten first. So, we aren't really sympathetic to Lori's weight issues. Except, (as she would whine if she got to help me write this) she used to be a size 4 and then had a baby at 40(ish) and gained weight because she spent her entire pregnancy inhaling the entire Bob Evan's breakfast menu. Italics were included to emphasize the parts she would really whine. Anyway, in our joint complaining about muffin tops (and not the edible ones) she said she didn't care anymore because when she dies she is not keeping that body anyway, so why worry about it. So, I guess my point is... is that true?

When we go to heaven, do you think we keep the body that we are in when we die? Is it like a freeze frame of what we look like the day we died? Will I be this fat even in the afterlife? And seriously, what about the hair? There was a day (that I've tried to block from my memory) a few years back, when I asked for a simple trim and came out of the chair with G.I. Jane's doo. I cried for days (not a pretty point in my life). But, if I died that day, would I go to heaven having to explain that I didn't die in combat but really it was from my hair stylist's self defense after I attacked her for shaving my head? Or, do you leave your mortal body behind (and what a behind I have!)?

Now, Lori's plan is to have her body either donated to science or cremated. She feels that she would rather be a crispy critter than be in the body she currently has for all eternity. I personally disagree, plus what if you have that burnt smell forever? I hate the smell of burnt toast and I would rather be Fay Fatty Fatterson then smell burned bits all the time. And I wonder, if you donate your body to science, does that mean that just pieces of you show up to heaven and you're kept in a box like a jigsaw puzzle? Plus, we are talking about a freeze frame of when you die. If you die fully clothed and you just happen to step off a cliff Wile E. Coyote style, its not what happens to your body after you are dead that goes to heaven, right? I hope not, or that cat would be a stain laying somewhere in the clouds. So, if you die in a normal state and then get cremated, the ashes don't go to heaven, it would be your image when you died, not what the funeral home folks do to you after. Duh, Lori! Or, do you abandon your mortal frame and float around, just a soul in some sort of ethereal cloud? I vote for that one... because I personally think that transluscence would be very flattering. Transluscent is the new black. I warned you that this was deep stuff.

So, based on this conversation, I feel like there is even more pressure to go on a diet. Not only do I look like crap and feel like crap that's been squished under a shoe (from a self esteem standpoint), I also have to worry about wearing a swimsuit in a few short months, and NOW I have to worry about dying today and looking like this in heaven forever. Great! Like we don't have enough pressure with 90 pound movie stars and emaciated models... now I have to worry about the afterlife. Although... I just thought of this. If it is a freeze frame, does that mean you spend eternity in the clothes you died in? Crap... I gotta go get dressed.