Chapter One of Goodbye, Good Night, and Good Riddance: Nobody tells you what happens when you die

Chapter one of Goodbye, Good Night, and Good Riddance

Apr 15, 2025

Nobody tells you what happens when you die

Nobody tells you what happens immediately after you die. Nobody told me what was going to happen after I decided to overdose on purpose. They don’t know if it hurts, if there’s life after death, if you get to see the people you love again, if it’s warm and fuzzy. Everyone seems to think there’s some crazy scenario where your life flashes before your eyes, but the truth is, they know nothing. And once you figure it out for yourself, you can’t go back and tell anybody. It’s really a vicious cycle if you think about it. These would be good things to know ahead of time.

It seems like some higher being just plops you down on earth at birth and cruelly leaves you to forever wonder what the hell happens when it’s time to die. It’s the absolute most intimidating situation possible because it’s such a mystery. People lay awake at night, obsessing for hours, days, weeks, months, their entire life, over what happens when they die. Then in a matter of seconds, after building up their entire lives for the moment, they die.

Fortunately, I can tell you there isn’t some crazy horrifying demon like the one from that movie Insidious waiting for you on the other side. That thought actually crossed my mind on my way out, and I was pissed. I’d gone too far to turn back at that point, and realized if there was a spawn of satan waiting for me, I was completely and utterly screwed for all of eternity. Thankfully that wasn’t the case, but what I can tell you is that my answers aren’t really much clearer over here than they were over there. Sorry to disappoint you. For all I know, that whole theory of your brain releasing DMT could be real and I’m making all of this up, hallucinating into the void infinitely. Who knows? Not me and I’m the dead one.

Let me further explain how I got here, what it’s like and what a mess this limbo feels like.

First of all, I decided to cease sharing my reality with the living and all that did was throw me into some weird state of oblivion where I’m still stuck with access to everyone I hate, only now they can’t see or hear me. Death is weird, because it’s the opposite of living but almost the same. Where the living are experiencing their lives on earth, the dead seem to be watching it. Time isn’t real over here. Whoever said time was an illusion was right on the money. I can rewind, fast forward, pause, and look at what’s happening as if I’m just watching a Netflix show. But instead of watching it on television, I’m actually inside of what’s happening. It’s got to be a wet dream for the guy who invented 3-D movies. That was a pretty cool feature to the death thing at first, but then it became maddening. It’s also boring because I can see how everything ends if I want to. I can also witness the most frustrating, stupid situations unfold and there’s nothing I can do except watch it as if it’s fiction. When I was still alive I had a say, but in death I’m only powerless and forced to watch.

The dead have access to something that the living don’t though; we can relive our own lives and memories to fully experience anything and anyone we did when we were alive. It’s almost like having a flash drive with every single file that ever existed in your lifetime. I spent what felt like forever in a memory with my Grandma Lizzie when I first got here. Maybe it really was forever- time can’t rob me here. I was five again, and it was my birthday. My last birthday before she died, before we knew she had stage 4 breast cancer and as soon as they found it, she was pretty much gone. It happened so fast, the diagnosis and her death, and I spent the rest of my life missing her.

You may ask, why that memory?

Well, the dead have access to something else that the living do not- the other dead people we’ve lost. It gives me a pretty good idea of why I’m in limbo.

When I first died, I expected to be standing over my body, looking down at it. I wasn’t though. I was in a strange dark quiet place. It wasn’t scary, but it wasn’t comfy either. It was just existence. Because time isn’t a thing here, I can’t tell you how long I was there waiting for something to happen. For a hot minute I thought this was it, like we were just spending the rest of time in a void of nothingness. And we don’t have hands or feet or bodies here. We don’t breathe or sleep or eat. But we “live” in the air, in time and space, in our own heads. Whatever happens in our head while we’re alive is what’s left over after we die, and it’s all we are. Our energy is watching the same moon, stars, and sky as the living. We’re still here, just somewhere else.

What we don’t know when we’re alive is if we get to see people we love who have died. What we know when we finally do die is that we do get to see them… kind of.

My Grandma Lizzie was here, I could feel her presence. There is definitely a light, and she came toward me from it. I could see her as if she were alive, right in front of me. Her wisps of hair, gray and loose from her long, thick braid blowing in some nonexistent wind that was a figment of my imagination. She had on the same jeans and cotton pink t-shirt I remembered her in at my fifth birthday. I could feel her soft, weathered skin under my fingertips just how I remembered, only by looking at it.

“Why are you here already Polly?” She asked. She didn’t sound sad, but it’s because there isn’t really sadness if you’ve been here long enough I suppose. The same could not be said for me, my emotions were still very real.

“Oh Grandma, I couldn’t take it anymore.” I think if I were alive I would have felt guilt, but I didn’t. Fuck those assholes I left behind. I was still pissed.

“I can see.” She replied. “I saw your sadness and rage from here whenever I decided to watch you. I wish you could have had a better life, but everything happens according to plan. Time doesn’t exist here- I only assumed you were here early because your mother, father and grandfather aren’t here yet.”

“You can see us though, you didn’t see me kill myself?” I asked. She wasn’t making sense. But I somehow understood nothing was supposed to make sense, everything just was.

“I stopped watching long ago.” She said, touching my face with her rough hands. Though we didn’t have bodies, we still had a way of experiencing memories and the present over here. “I don’t like to be nosy, and I knew I would see you all again one day. I figured you could all just show me everything when you got here. Your birthday outfit is so precious.”

I looked down and suddenly I was five again, wearing my jean short overalls and frilly red t-shirt underneath. The white mary janes I hated so much were on my feet, but over here I couldn’t feel them digging into my heels.

“Where are we?” I asked, slightly startled. “What’s happening?”

“We see our loved ones in the state we choose to see them, the ones that meant the most to us.” She grinned. “But we can present ourselves differently if we choose. Show me your beautiful, adult self today. You’re 25 now. You’ll only ever know a life of being 25 and that’s the oldest anyone here will ever see you as.”

Without even trying, I was back in my soft gray sweatpants and old Willow Wolves high school cotton t-shirt. It was so worn and delicate from all the years of wear. This was my favorite outfit, and I was surprised to feel it on my no-longer-existing skin. I didn’t die in this outfit, though that would have been a much better option. Oh well, no do-overs. I was beginning to catch on- my spirit, or mind, or whatever it was that created my existence was operating differently than it did when I was alive. I subconsciously chose this outfit because it’s what I felt the most comfortable and safest in when I was alive. The freedom I felt from not being attached to a human body anymore was exhilarating.

“Would you like to see me at 25?” She grinned. “I only ask because I don’t want to scare you. I see you chose me as the old lady I was, but I choose my mother and grandmother to look their ages that I remember them most fondly in too.”

“Yes.” I answered. It weighed heavily on me that everyone was here. It overwhelmed me and I wasn’t sure how to feel. Where were her mother and grandmother? Why did it feel so empty if everyone that ever existed before me was here?

I blinked and my grandmother was standing in front of me in the darkness, a single light shone on her. Her dark brown chocolate colored hair was curled at the ends and much shorter, the gray I had just seen gone. She was thinner, wearing a cotton yellow dress that buttoned down the front and a pair of black loafers. Her eyes were sparkling blue with mascara on them and she had on bright red lipstick. The wrinkles were gone and she had tight, smooth skin. I had seen pictures, but they did no justice for how truly beautiful she was.

“This was my favorite dress, your grandfather loved it.” She smiled sweetly. “I miss him very much. He’s probably beside himself that you’re here with me before him. I try to visit him in his dreams, but just like the living know nothing about death, we over here don’t know if we’re ever actually connecting with the living in their thoughts or dreams. The occasional psychic taps in but I can’t stand those people.”

It hadn’t dawned on me that I was going to hurt more people than I imagined before choosing to intentionally take my own life. I did it so fast I didn’t even think about it. Scribbled the notes, snorted the lines, and here I was with Grandma Lizzie all in a matter of what felt like seconds.

“Do not fret.” My grandmother turned back into the woman I remembered, consoling me instantly, like she knew how I felt. She could sense it.

“I was so angry.” I explained. “So pissed off, at everyone. At mom, dad, Sully, and Hannah. I didn’t think of grandpa, or Jasper, my dog. Oh no, Jasper’s going to be so upset!”

“Jasper will be here sooner than you know.” She told me. It was strange to think that I wanted him to hurry up and get here. My entire life was devoted to doting on my dog and keeping him alive for as long as I could. His precious curly fur always smelled like something sweet, and normally he would calm me down and give me a reason to live for one more day. In that moment of weakness though, he just wasn’t enough.

“And grandpa too?” I asked sadly.

“Yes.” Grandma Lizzie said. “Once I knew you were here I took a peek. He hasn’t been well for some time, but he’s lying to you all about it. Your mother is not going to handle it well. I don’t like to look ahead, it’s kind of an unwritten rule here that we don’t, but you can if you want. I didn’t look to see that this was going to happen to you. It takes so much energy to do it too, it’s exhausting. Plus, we don’t want negative emotions to impact us over here. You could see the world end if you really wanted to.”

“Holy shit the world ends?!” I cried. I watched myself turn into little me again, scared and seeking solace in my grandmother’s arms. Before I knew it we were back in her living room with the big blue recliner, and she had me pulled up into her lap, hugging me tightly, rocking back and forth the way we used to.

“Yes, of course it does.” She laughed. “But you have nothing to worry about. Everyone will be over here by then, and you won’t feel a thing. You don’t have to witness it. As far as time over here is concerned, it’s already happened. The beginning, the now, and the end. We can see how it plays out. We already know. But why ruin the magic by looking ahead?”

“Where did you come from?” I asked, playing with a loose string on the chair as she cradled me. I could feel the two brown pigtails on either side of my head bobbing around, a hairstyle I hadn’t felt tugging my scalp in ages.

“See that door?” She pointed into the distance, and the outline of a doorframe could be made out in the darkness. It was like a closed door at the end of a very dark hallway, but you could see bright light coming through the cracks from the other side. A quiet muffled sound of voices, laughter, even music, came from the other side.

“Am I going in there with you?” I asked.

“Not yet.” Grandma Lizzie answered. I could smell the coffee and cinnamon on her, a smell I had long forgotten about. The idea that I could experience every taste, touch, sound, and smell I had ever enjoyed throughout my life, especially the ones I’d forgotten, filled me with so much bliss.

“Why?” I asked. “What am I supposed to do? Where even am I and what are the rules, who makes them?”

“You just got here.” She answered, bopping my nose. “You have to see some things through. You didn’t get here peacefully my love, you aren’t close to the light.”

“What light?” I asked angrily. “What does that even mean?”

I looked around and saw we were now in my old bedroom, the way it looked when I was 14. The age I was when I first started to feel the rage that never subsided again. I was wearing a pair of low rise jeans and a too-tight spaghetti strapped tank top that exposed my midriff.

“What the hell is this?” I asked. “Do my emotions match the same things I had in life when I had the same feelings?”

“For now inside the void, yes.” She answered. “It stops eventually, when you get used to it. I can’t explain how it all works, but I felt the same way you did. I was much closer to the light than you are when I died, but I didn’t have the anger and rage you did. You need to put in the work to have a higher frequency in order to reach the light.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” I shouted. I could tell she was leaving me soon to go back.

“That’s for you to figure out, Bunny.” She smiled warmly before taking me into a tight hug.

Polly my bunny, bunny my Polly she used to sing to me.

“Will I ever get to the light?” I felt like I was going to cry, but I didn’t have a body to cry with, not really anyway. The feeling was just so crushing and all consuming in ways it wasn’t when I was alive. While living, my body enclosed the feelings, giving them a space to fill, but here the space was vast and went on for lightyears.

“Of course you will.” She pulled back from our embrace to look me in my eyes. “You need to look at what you did, understand it. Forgive where you can and feel your emotions. The bitterness and fury are weighing you down, not allowing your frequency to rise. And remember, time isn’t real. So you have all the time in the world to do that. When you’re ready, we’ll be waiting for you. Until then, enjoy it. Enjoy the life you did have, the good things. Find the beauty, the gratitude, the love. Those are the things you need to reach the light. Find out why you did what you did and let that go. Visit the living, understand them better. You just might see everything through a new lens.”

“Can I still see you?” I asked desperately. I was back in my sweats and t-shirt, my mind knowing it was a comfort I so desperately needed.

“You can visit me in any memory you want.” She cupped my face in her hands. “And we’ll be waiting for you when you’re ready. Call for me when you need me, I’m always with you.”