After Life

I’m in Egypt. It’s August. It’s hot. Hot. Hot. It’s the end of my trip and I’m tired. But I drag myself to the Luxor Museum. After the sticky, stinky, amazing mess of wonders at the Cairo Museum, I’m pleasantly surprised at the cool, quiet, organized collection. I walk through slowly, letting the artifacts and their stories suck me in as the fans on the walls whisper quietly.

It seems, for these ancient Egyptians, life itself meant next to nothing. The years spent struggling on earth- just a blip in the forever after, just a preparation for the after life. Tombs were elaborate storage units for the stuff that might be needed in the after life. And that stuff is what I’m looking at now. It’s boxes and bins, chairs, beds, sandals, jewelry, games. It’s mostly mundane, everyday life stuff (golden thrones aside). It’s nothing I would consider needing for an after life. The after-life they were readying for seems to be very much like life-life. It seems they planned to be organized, comfortable, bejeweled, and entertained long after their bodies quit being anything.

The museum is small. I’ve walked the perimeter, and have made my way to a small room in the middle. It is dark and empty, except for an open sarcophagus encased in glass. As I move closer to look at this wrapped up ancient person, this mummy, my mind flashes to the hospital. To the first girl I watched die. How I removed my hand from hers. How I held her mother. How I picked her sister up off the floor. How I bathed her body. How I tied her hands together at her wrists and her feet together at her ankles with fine white string, knots followed unnecessarily by bows. How I closed her mouth with a cloth chinstrap that was made specifically for this purpose—all to get her body just right before it hardens in some awkward, inhuman way. How I wrapped her in a white plastic drape, so the outline of her body was all that was left. And when I look at this wrapped body in Egypt, all I can think of is the body I wrapped in the Bronx. And how small the world is. And how little has changed. And how I hope there is an after life. And how I hope my girl is organized and comfortable and bejeweled and entertained.