On Death and Dying - Part 4

What happens to us after death?  Isn’t this one of the greatest questions of mankind?  And my ideas about it change almost on a daily basis.  For a long time I believed that we went to heaven.  I wasn’t sure what heaven really was but I felt that we would be in an eternity that perhaps we couldn’t even imagine but would be pleasant.  Then I started thinking about reincarnation.  I noticed as I was raising you boys that two of you, Jake and Drew, seemed like old souls.  Although you weren’t necessarily book smart you were very wise.  And that two of you, Zach and Sam, seemed like very young souls.  You are both very book smart but were not as wise as your brothers at a young age.  In addition, Pop and I have always felt that we had some other worldly connection and have become convinced that we knew each other before.  This lead me to believe that perhaps we go through several lives learning the lessons we need to learn.  Pop and I believe we have been married before.  We think that one of us is the woman and one the man and it changes with every life.  Although in the next life we are convinced that I will be the man and Pop will be my labrador retriever.  

I also believe that many of the people in my life are in my life over and over again but in different roles - those people that I meet that I am instantly attracted to or with whom I become fast friends almost immediately.  Those are the ones that have been with me in other lives. 

My belief is that everyone on this earth has a job to do or a lesson to learn and once that is accomplished they die.  It’s the only way I can explain the death of babies and small children.  I have to believe that they were born to enlighten their parents or maybe were just about finished with their human role but had a few more things to accomplish that only took a few more days, weeks, or years and that is why they die so young.  The death of babies and children is still very hard for me to wrap my head around and this is the only explanation I can come up with.  

I think perhaps death is just a higher level of consciousness.  It is very difficult for me to believe there is nothing after death.  For thousands of years people from every culture have talked about life after death experiences that have been shared through generations.  People who have died in hospitals and been brought back to life have all shared the common experience of hovering over their beds watching people attend to them, of seeing a bright light that was drawing them toward it, of having to make a choice about coming back to their life or moving on to the next realm.  These experiences have profoundly changed these people as they grapple with their own mortality and the knowledge of what awaits them “on the other side.”   Perhaps I want to believe in the afterlife or reincarnation because to consider the alternative is too scary.  If we cannot move onto a higher consciousness, then what is the point of life at all.  Are we humans having a spiritual experience or are we spiritual beings having a human experience?  I would like to believe the latter knowing that even if I don’t “get it right” in this life, I’ll have another chance.  And what does “getting it right” mean?  I don’t know.  That, to me, is the biggest mystery.