A friend told me recently she wasn’t sure if she believed in a life after death. I said I wasn’t sure either but I wasn’t worried about it.
I’ve had a really good life. I’ve loved and been loved. I have children and grandchildren who will live on after me and I take immense joy and pride in the people they have become and are becoming.
I have had a rewarding career.
I have been lucky enough to see a great deal of the world.
I’ve been able to explore all kinds of interests of mine.
I’ve been fortunate to have many things I’ve written published and put out there into the world.
I’ve been blessed with great friends.
I have terrific siblings I can count on.
Sure there have been hard times in my life, times of profound loss, terrible frustration, deep disappointment and heartbreaking grief but often that was because I’d loved, cared, hoped or dreamed and I’m not sorry about taking those chances even though things didn’t end up as I wished or wanted.
If there is a life after death that would be an adventure, but honestly taken as a whole my life has been a pretty good adventure too so if there is something after death it will be a bonus.
Of course, I’d like to believe the idea that we are mysteriously reunited with those we love after death. Maybe our souls or spirits do merge in some way and we become part of an eternal force, at one with the divine. I can’t imagine how that might happen- it is beyond my ability to fathom- but I don’t discount the possibility.
I still feel really connected to some of the people who have predeceased me. I think of my mother nearly every day, the things she taught me and role-modelled for me are still a big part of my life. I think of my grandparents often and the unconditional love they gave me. My mother-in-law was a very inspirational woman.
When my new granddaughter was born last week my brother sent me a message saying that he was happy the continuum of love passed on to us by our mother was alive in a new generation. In a very real way I think my mother’s love lives on and in that way so does she.
Religious writer Nadia Bolz Weber puts it this way…… because God is love, the love we shared here on Earth is the connective tissue that unites us eternally with everyone who loved us.
I told my friend who wondered if there was life after death that even if we die and that’s final- there’s nothing else- we all still live on. My friend was a healthcare professional and I told her a little bit of her would live on in every patient she cared for and helped.
I follow author and life coach Heather Plett on social media and she wrote recently that our lives are like a canvas on which a painting is being created for each one of us. When we have relationships or even short interactions with people we leave a little dab of paint on their canvas. The dabs we’ve left on other people’s life canvases will live on even after we’ve died.
Is there life after death? I’m not sure. There might be and that could be an exciting experience.
I do think however, that no matter what happens we do live on after we die……… through the love we’ve given, the example we’ve been, the lives we’ve touched, the dabs of paint we’ve left on other people’s life canvases.
Other posts……..