Reincarnation

My Uncle B. is fascinated by stories of reincarnation–where little kids are all “Oh, hey, Mom, remember when I died?” and then it turns out they have all these memories of being World War II fighter pilots.

I’m also fascinated by them, but not for the same reasons. I’m struck by how the memories of a kid’s old life fade. How you might be left with this sense that there was someone you used to be, but you’ve forgotten the specifics.

My dad makes fun of reincarnation, because everyone imagines they were Cleopatra and no one was the guy building the Pyramids who died of, I don’t know, scurvy. But those aren’t the kinds of stories that are compelling to Uncle B. and me. We like, I think, the suggestion that, if you got some kind of raw deal–died of cancer when you were 4 or in a plane crash when you were 20–you can get another shot.

I don’t think Uncle B. and I are waiting around to see if Grandma is going to be reincarnated. It’s hard to imagine she’d want to, after living a whole, long life. But the idea that you can cheat the kinds of death that cheat you? Oh, I like that.

But I also like how that kind of reincarnation turns your old self into a kind of ghost that haunts your current self. Perhaps turns your own body into a haunted house.