The Lost Season Finale

The Lost season finale, viewed by 20.5 million fans, has prompted a lot of speculation about life, death, and eternity. What happened after the closing credits? What happened when Jack, Sawyer, Sayid, and the rest of the Lost gang stepped through those double doors into the brilliant light of the unknown? Is there something after this life?

These are not new questions.

Until her death in 1886, poet Emily Dickinson pondered the subjects of life, death, and eternity. Some of her poems conclude that life ends at the grave, but one of my favorites, “Because I could not stop for Death,” expresses a hope for immortality.

The poem relates the story of a lady looking back on the day that she had been too busy to stop for Death, so he “kindly” stopped for her. Dickinson personifies Death as a carriage driver who takes his passenger on an unhurried drive through the countryside. The passenger is actually a corpse being transported to the cemetery and the drive symbolizes the journey from life to death to eternity. Like all of Dickinson’s writings, this poem is generously peppered with dashes.

Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste –

And I had put away

My labor and my leisure too,

For his Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove

At Recess –  in the Ring –

We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –

We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather –  He passed Us –

The Dews drew quivering and chill –

For only Gossamer, my Gown –

My Tippet –  only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground –

The Roof was scarcely visible –

The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then –  ‘tis Centuries – and yet

Feels shorter than the Day

I first surmised the Horses’ Heads

Were toward Eternity –

Every image pulls the passenger and the reader closer to the ultimate destination:  Eternity. Having put away her labor and leisure, the lady accompanies the carriage driver from her home, past children playing in the schoolyard, past fields of gazing grain, past a cemetery where a House (her coffin) is being lowered into the ground, and into the setting sun.

The final words of the poem propel the reader’s eyes and thoughts forward, past the Horses’  Heads…toward…Eternity…and on past Dickinson’s final dash.

What comes next? Only the dash knows the answer, for the Carriage has transported its passenger from the here-and-now into the mysterious hereafter.

The season finale of Lost accomplished the same feat, forcing my thoughts into the brilliant light somewhere beyond the dash.

Do you feel a yearning, an ache to know what is out there? I do. I think that is one of the many reasons that Lost has been so successful. Most of us wonder and many even worry over it like Dickinson.

The negative part of knowing the answers is that we have to die to find out. Lost suggests that, though dying may include pain and suffering, what happens afterwards is going to be worth it all. We will finally understand and be understood. We will know and be known.

I close with the comforting words uttered by theologian Thomas Goodwin on his deathbed:  “Ah, is this dying? How I have dreaded as an enemy this smiling friend.”