When I was young, the fear of death bothered me a great deal. I remember taking my first business course at West Valley Junior College, when classes were still being held on the former campus of Campbell Junior High School, before it moved to a permanent campus in Saratoga, California. During a break, I stood outside the classroom drinking vending machine coffee. I was filled with horror and dread at the knowledge that I would someday die, that the world would go on without me. Traffic would still fill the streets, people would still go to work, students would still attend classes but I wouldn’t be there.
As the years passed, the dread and horror lessened and now, in old age, they have ceased completely. So many friends and family members have preceded me in death that I feel somewhat guilty at having survived them. Why am I still here? Am I being punished?
A subject that interests me greatly is the near death experience, a common phenomenon among those who have flatlined but still survived. A common characteristic is that the experiencers have felt enveloped in a bright light and immersed in feelings of great love, i.e., that they feel loved beyond all prior experience. They meet loved ones who died before, and are even reunited with deceased pets like dogs and cats. Most do not want to come back but are told they have no choice, that their time is not yet.
An original researcher into the phenomenon is Raymond Moody, whose book “Life After Life” introduced the subject to millions. Moody reported that after studying thousands of NDEs since, he finally just accepted it for what it seems, that there is an afterlife and that we survive physical death.
I hope so. I would like to rejoin departed friends, family and especially my dogs, in another dimension, in a better world than this. Is it true? Hope costs nothing and I will find out in not too many more years.
