Community-- on this side and that

The beliefs of what comes after death run the gamut from nothing, to being reborn, to a heavenly throne or fiery hell, to lavish rewards of virgins or crowns, to being a god on your own planet, and on and on. Some fear dying. Some can hardly wait to get to the other side. Some know exactly what will happen. Some, even as they reach old age, don't want to think about it.

There are those who say it does not matter what we believe-- what is is. And that could well be true. On the other hand, what we expect might impact what we find there.

There is a good film starring Robin Williams on this subject. If you have not seen it and like exploring questions of what life after death might be like, it's called What Dreams May Come. It takes a rather New Age perspective that, as we often do here, we create our heaven or hell-- except the potential is much greater there as it's all energy without the flesh as a limitation. It also showed who helped William's character accept his own sudden death-- someone from the other side.

This is not a review of that film nor about what I personally believe is on the other side, but rather about that transitioning. I want to share a few stories from my family. Most families have them.

First one involves my grandmother's stepbrother. In the flu pandemic of 1918, as a strong young man (who you'd think would be the least likely to die, but statistically in that flu was in the group most likely), he died. Through his illness, Grandma was at his bedside, caring for him, as well as her three little daughters who also had that flu.

As he lay dying, he told her all of the ones he could see from their family. Fanny, can't you see them? He was seeing a community who had come for him and he named who was there.

When my mother died, she was at the other end of life-- 85 and living in a mobile home on this farm. She just had the flu or so we thought. That morning she wasn't up and about. My husband broke open her door and found she had died in her sleep. When I went in, I didn't look at Mom's face. I knew her personality, didn't feel she would like me to see her that way, plus didn't want it to be my last memory of her; but I looked at her body which was in the bed, covered with the blankets except her hand. Her hand was stretched upward. I have always wondered but will never know. Was she reaching out for my father, for her sister who had already died, perhaps her own mother and father? Had they come for her?

Finally there is a dream that my husband had a couple of years ago. He dreamed he was coming, in the spirit, to help our daughter cross over. She was an old woman lying in a bed in a house he said he had never seen before. He said I had already come to be there and told him when he arrived-- don't say anything. She knows we are here. He said he looked at the side of her bed and at first thought it was her daughter sitting there, then realized it was her granddaughter and the older woman with her was her daughter.

That dream was a beautiful example of the community that we benefit from having, on both sides, to make our own transition from this life to whatever awaits. Not everyone has children but everyone can have life-long friends, who are committed to being there for each other. If we keep ourselves open to the spiritual side, to the guides or angels who are helping us in this life, if we have developed caring relationships, someone will be on the other side also to help us cross over-- as I believe we do.