a couple of days ago... in the movie Father James tells one parishioner that "faith comes merely from a fear of death"...

My son died when he was 17, he would have been 41 yesterday.

My dad died two years latter.

My sister died 7 years later.

I never knew either of my grandfathers.

They were dead before I was born.

I think religion causes people to fear death.

I think death will be just like before I was born.

I won't know anything about it.

We came into the world alone (basically) and we will leave the world alone.

I also believe our loved ones are not far away, which makes their passing more bearable.

When my parents died within 6 weeks of each other, I had a tough time letting them go. One of their friends told me that they only way she got thru the loss of her mother was to picture her sitting in the rocking chair on the front porch...just beyond the lace curtains. In her last couple years, that is what she would do after supper. She said it made life so much easier. She is the one person who helped me more than anyone else with that story.

I miss my husband. He died in August he wasn't afraid. Neither was I. Sometimes I feel like he's still here. Like I forgot he died. Other times I feel like he existed long ago and has been dead for decades. It's weird.
He's dead I will be dead. A handful of people may vaguely remember us in 50 years if they're not dead. It is normal.

I would love to tell you my feelings on this topic, but I won't because I refused to be mocked and made fun of over my beliefs, and on this website, there are plenty of people willing to paint a target on your back for a few laughs. I will pass on this, thanks..

of the way I might die.

I am not religious, but am inclined to believe there is something more and lean toward life after death. I worked Hospice for many years and saw and heard so much that it is hard to ignore.

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well.

My husband was in amazement the morning he died. He said everyone was floating and sailing outside the huge window near his bed. I asked who everyone was and he said, "Just everybody...just everyone!!!" My father also asked me to take him home. "We" caught a bus (which neither of us had ever ridden), went to his home and when he was done checking everything out, he said, "OK, we can go back now." He died a couple hours later.

He was in the hospital 3 weeks before he died. The day after he went on the hospital he said a guy named Harold showed up and was standing in the corner. Then a little boy showed up. The room kept filling up. The day before he died he said the room was so full hardly anyone could fit in. He said the cat was always at the foot of the bed. There were only a few people he knew. Several times he would stop talking for a minute and then say you aren't going to believe this. He used the words spectacular and amazing. At some point the wall in front of him disappeared and he was looking at the universe. He said it was spectacular. When I asked him to describe it further he would say it was unbelievable and I wouldn't understand what was happening. He was looking forward to going He told me he wasn't afraid that it was going to be spectacular.

believer in that type of stuff, but after a near death-type experience nine months before, he was changed and actually looked forward to death as an adventure. The people floating and sailing threw me and I asked the dr. if he had given him some strong pain relief. He said that he hadn't, but didn't go on to say that was part of the process, so I had no idea that was the day he would be leaving. He kept watching the clock and at 6:00 pm, he started the process. Fifteen minutes later, he was gone.

Thanks for that story.

My husband was a devout old time catholic during the weeks he knew he was dying he never mentioned God or heaven. He refused a priest and clergy. He told me they could not understand and neither could anyone else.

We were Methodist but not active at that time. Right before 6:00, he asked if I knew what was going to happen soon. I said they were going to do some respiratory work to help him breathe easier. His lungs were filling with fluid. He shook his head in a frustrating way to let me know that's not what he meant or wanted. At the end, he said, 'I'll wait for you." as though he knew he could, so I'm hoping he is in that crowd that comes to take me wherever he was headed and we'll walk the rest of the way together.

My husband was humming almost like a chant when he was dying. It wasn't the respiratory distress you sometimes see. It started low and the humming rose in tone almost with a question mark at the end. It had rythem. I was glad I was there but as soon as he died it was starkly clear to me no part of him was still here. He went with the people past the wall into the universe.

You know, we've been grieving and they are probably somewhere playing golf or trying to catch the prize fish without a care in the world.

and they felt love, lots of love all around them.

Thank you for sharing your stories - they are beautiful.

I have two great-grandchildren from two different families who have pointed to photos of the angel/person who stands at the foot of their bed or above the doorway to their bedroom. Neither was old enough to pick up on stories about the other side from adults or older children. One was three and the other was just four. The three-year-old even talked to his great-great grandmother when he was alone in his bedroom. His mother could hear him through the intercom. He had never met her since she died before he was born. Same with the four-year-old. He picked his "angel" out of a family photo album and very matter-of-factly stated she was his angel. Neither was frightened and both felt safe.

then it's over so why all the killing and hate? Why make life harder on anyone knowing how little time we have? It makes no sense.

"Listen to the heart of this old soldier. As with all of us the time comes when body and mind are battered and weary. But I do not go quietly into the night. I do not give up struggling to be a responsible contributor to the sacred continuum of human life. I do not give up struggling to overcome my weakness, to conform my life - and that part of my life called death - to the great values of the human dream.

Death is not a tragedy. It is not an evil from which we must escape. Death is as natural as birth. Like childbirth, death is often a time of fear and pain, but also of profound beauty, of celebration of the mystery and majesty which is life pushing its horizons toward oneness with the truth of mother universe. The days of dying carry a special responsibility. There is a great potential to communicate values in a uniquely powerful way - the person who dies demonstrating for civil rights.

Let my final actions thunder of love, solidarity, protest - of empowerment.

I adamantly protest the richest culture in the history of the world, a culture which has the obvious potential to create a golden age of science and democracy dedicated to maximizing the quality of life of every person, but which still squanders the majority of its human and physical capital on modern versions of primitive symbols of power and prestige.

I adamantly protest the richest culture in the history of the world which still incarcerates millions of humans with and without disabilities in barbaric institutions, backrooms and worse, windowless cells of oppressive perceptions, for the lack of the most elementary empowerment supports.

I call for solidarity among all who love justice, all who love life, to create a revolution that will empower every single human being to govern his or her life, to govern the society and to be fully productive of life quality for self and for all." - Justin Dart

That is a truth that cannot be denied, yet so many people pretend it's not true.

Change is inevitable, nothing stays the same here in the physical world, including our bodies. No one has every been able to beat death; why then, do so many waste their lives struggling against it? Personally, I am choosing to not be afraid, and in that lies true freedom. I know that my consciousness (the non-physical), that part of me that has been strong and true since the day I was born, will continue on in another form after I'm done with my journey here. What that form is I don't know, but the idea of it is becoming increasingly less scary to me. Death is a transition to something else; it is not good or bad, it just is.

I certainly don't believe in a man-god who interferes in our lives, orchestrates our fate, judges us when we die, and if we weren't 'good' while we were alive, can condemn us to intractable misery FOREVER. This notion is directly related to our culture's insatiable need to consume.

The buddhist doctrine of Impermanence has helped me live my life in the now, and come to grips with the unpleasantness of death.

This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds
To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance.
A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,
Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.

Buddha (563 - 483 BC)

Last edited Sun Dec 14, 2014, 01:36 PM - Edit history (1)

about life - everything that lives is going to die.

There was a great article about death in the Guardian recently. Here's a link.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/23/-sp-diana-athill-its-silly-frightened-being-dead
It’s silly to be frightened of being dead

Another great link
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/may/04/death-doulas-helping-people-face-up-to-death
Death doulas: helping people face up to dying

A poem from the movie Breaker Morant



Oh those rides across the river,
but a shallow stream runs wide,
and a sunset's beams were glossing
strips of sand on either side


We would cross that sparkling river,
on a brown horse and a bay;
watch the willows sway and shiver
and the trembling shadows play.



These are memories to be hoarded
of a foolish tale and fond,
'Til another creek be forded,
and we reach the Great Beyond.

We have factored it into our impending move to Washington state and our purchase of our last house. It's an important factor, since when one of us goes, the family income will take a hit for the remaining one.

We have a living trust & a will , and will make our own "final plans"..and pre-pay them for our kids. That way no one has to make a decision they may be unsure of, or would have to convince the other two of.

At 65 (me) and 71 (him), we know that the end is nearer than we may think, and it only makes sense to talk about it from time to time.

I think it scares him, more than it does me, but then I "should have died", many times, so I have always felt like I was on borrowed (stolen?) time

The guy who tried to rob me could have just as easily shot me in the head like he threatened to....but he did not, and I got an extra 25 years (so far) on that one.