Yes, Getting old can be depressing
if you let it. No secret there. I can still remember seeing my dad again after not seeing him for a year.
He was in his late sixties then and told me he was having a hard time not being able to work outside as hard as he could
when he was in his forties. I almost cried.
.
Now, I am sixty and getting old myself. I can hardly believe
the person I catch a glimpse of in a store window as I pass by is really me. I have aches and pains in places I
never thought much about and the years really do fly by when you start getting old. I think about death once in awhile
because it is inevitable, but I don't dwell on it.
.
For a believer, dying means you are going home. If you are not a believer, death is merely a shutting
down of the body and brain. No more pain, no more joy... nothing. And that explanation seems enough
for non-believers, the 'Just letting go' of life. If that's the case then why were we here in the first place?
Why is anything here?
My question
to those who believe there is no after-life is this; since we are energy, and energy is without end, where does this
energy go when we die? “Your
brain just stops working” and it’s lights out may be enough for some, but it just doesn’t cut it for
me.
Science and religion are starting to cross paths. Even my fragile faith
is buoyed when I hear about the experiences of hospital and hospice workers who have had remarkable experiences with people
at death’s door.
.
They note that there is often
a serenity that comes over their patients in the last days of life. They accept, and often relief that their journey…often
painful by now, is coming to an end. Some of the most beautiful and confirming experiences occur when the patient,
totally lucid, sees and communicates with loved ones that the workers cannot see. These patients joyfully speak of relatives
and spouses who have come to reassure them that they are waiting for them.
My cousin lost her mother a few years ago. She spent many hours
at her mother's bedside the last couple of weeks. And the last few days her mother would talk to someone
in the corner of her room. It was her mother who was coming to take her home.
I know of an instance where both husband and wife were in the hospital at the same time. One evening the
wife sat up and asked the nurse why her husband was in the room. She was confused because he too was in the hospital
in a room down the hall. Both were gravely ill. The nurse knew it was impossible. There was no way her husband could
have been in the room because he had just died. “But he told me he was here to take me with him,” the
old woman said. That night the old woman passed too.
.
I watch a lot of paranormal programs on television. I've always been fascinated with the after-life and the paranormal.
My husband thinks I'm a little odd. One program sited a scientifically controlled study concerning the
process of dying. It resulted in an interesting find. At the exact instant we die, our bodies weigh less. I think
it was like 21 ounces. Could that be the weight of a soul that goes on to the afterlife?
.
Scientists tell us that life is energy, and energy cannot be destroyed. It can only be transformed into something
else. After seeing the results
of the study done on dying, I'm convinced that souls are energy. And if they are energy, they must go somewhere.
My hope is that we
all strive to be in the moment. We all have our time here on earth, let's enjoy this gift. As long as we breathe we should
embrace life to the fullest.
.
© 2010 – Christine Dixon
