Three Views of the Afterlife

Death is a topic that has always intrigued people. Many hope for or fear an afterlife, others believe it is the end of body, personality, and soul. My friend, Arlan, and I once had a long discussion about this, each of us holding a different perspective. He believes, sensibly I think, that death can only be the end, that no part of him will survive. I agree with him—-on an intellectual level. However, I understand how people are unable to fathom an end.

I told him of my experiences of Rene, my mother, and my father after each of their deaths. I'd always assumed that those experiences said something about me, certainly nothing about the afterlife. Arlan pointed out that those experiences say something about each of those people.

Photo by Rene's sister, Mona

Rene died at a time when I couldn't cope with one more loss. Surprisingly, her spirit seemed to linger with me, filling me with inexplicable laughter whenever I felt overwhelmed by her absence. She stayed with me for nine months, until the night I dreamed of unusual home where a woman was about to give birth. Rene had always been a source of laughter and joy, but this experience revealed her enduring presence in my life.

At the moment of my mother’s death, I saw her spirit ascend in an instant to a cloud where she held a harp and everything difficult about her had fallen away. My mother spent years hiding from the world; that was the afterlife she would have wanted.

While I had always known that Rene was a bringer of laughter, I had not recognized, at least not consciously, that my father had always been deeply afraid of everything, including death. After he died, I repeatedly saw him wandering alone in a barren landscape: lost, frustrated, afraid, and crying.

And then there was Butterfly (פַּרְפַּר), my beloved cat. My experiences of him after his passing were of an entirely different caliber: I knew they were real. After he passed away, his spirit visited me one night; he was as big as I am and he spooned himself against my back. Although he came to the house many other nights, on those occasions he focused entirely on reassuring his daughter, Nutmeg.

Might my experiences of those people have been shaped by the predominant and sometimes unexplored facets of their personalities? Were the things I saw actually windows into their souls or into my perceptions of them?

Whether my visions were true or not, they do suggest the complexity of human existence. There are so many mysteries that lie beyond our understanding; I’m not inclined to spend much time considering the possibility of an afterlife, but those experiences do prompt me to cherish the connections I have in this life.