What are the motifs in What I Would Ask My Husband's Dead Father by Sharon Hashimoto?

Life after death is a recurring idea in the poem. The loss of traditional religious ritual and belief is forcefully expressed in the blunt words of the speaker's father, which she quotes: "'It's up to you. When I'm dead, I'm dead. I won't know / the difference.'" This is one of two opposing perspectives on death presented in the poem. For the speaker's father, death is the end of everything. There is no afterlife of any kind. This is the point of view of an atheist, as the speaker points out. Neither Catholic Christianity nor Buddhism has anything valuable to offer in such a view.