There’s always that kind of comfort, one that’s just there in the air, living under your parents’ roof. Where your ancestral altar is. No matter how beaten up you may seem, you know you’re gonna be just fine. As long as you’re still sleeping ‘next to’ those of your blood, who were gone. I’m having difficulty thinking about my ancestors lately. Even though I have a clear sense (that Idk why I know, I just know that it’s clear) that they’re somewhere around and can protect me. The living being protected by the gone. No matter how long gone. Maybe just a few months back, and we still look at the last pictures of them with disbelief, that they were there and now they’re just gone. And what gives them all the ‘power’? All the wisdom? To guide us, to protect us? Why? When they were alive, they didn’t know anything more than we do now, if not much less. Especially the ones having so much trouble living. What makes all that go away after they die? Say, my grandpa left my grandma with 2 daughters to raise alone, and mom grew up without a dad. But now we look to him, up on the altar, asking for his blessing for the family that he left behind. Say, the aunt that died of sickness, but now are being asked to grant good health and good fortune to the living. Say, the great great (great great?) aunt that died unmarried, now is where we turn to for healthy family relationships. Say, you live stupid. How can you ghost smart? Is it death that gives them all the power? Becoming a spirit? What’s behind death? Is it just something we make up for ourselves to push thru our miserable lives, because no matter what we do, how we live, we’re gonna sit up there on the altar someday, knowing it all, having generations depending on us. Is that why so many people tried to come back from death, to see what’s on the other side? The one that came back, what did they find? Do they want to continue living, or continue being dead? If all the dead share that same power, can I pray at your family’s altar, asking for the same things?