What happened to our loved ones after when they passed away? A family member I was really close to passed away at the start of the year. I never got to say good bye as she was overseas. Compounding this was the fact she died with no medical help spending months in pain and misery. All I could do was look things up on the net or help as best I could in terms of passing on my knowledge. My parents went over and told me how she'd change from a bubbling healthy grandmother to skin and bones and hallucinating and not eating.
As the first death in our family it hit us all pretty hard. I still have the occasional nightmare and certain songs on the radio get a lump in my throat. But I am moving on slowly although I can't say that about my mum. I guess anonymity makes it easy for one to express how they feel. I find it hard talking about this stuff and even harder trying to help mum through it.
So my question was a random thought that if we knew where our loved ones went when they are gone. Maybe even being able to communicate with them like they are on another distant world. Would it make things more easier? Or would people still grieve as much? Would death be so exemplified in the news or would it become just everyday 'matters of fact'? Would shark attacks be as sensationalised too?
Mark Twain said "why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral - is it because we are not the one involved?"
Very pessimistic view but OTOH it implies that death may be a release from the bad things in the world.
My sympathy on the loss of your grandmother. I lost both of my parents at an early age, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it so I learnt the art of accepting the things you cannot change when i was only young. I think that death is a part of living, natural like the leaves falling from the trees and I feel appreciative to have had the people I have lost in my life to lose. I like to reminisce about the good times and lessons passed onto me from my parents when they were alive rather then the sad things that happened when they died. I don't know what happened to them spiritually once they died, I like to think that if they were watching over me from somewhere that they would be proud of who I am today, I like to think that in a way they live on in me.
Hmmm so many answers, yet no answers.
Religion, apart from being a guide on how to live with others is mechanism for dealing with just this very thing (I am not religious at all btw). I have spent every working day for the last 10 yrs dealing with death and I still have no answers. As a scientist, when you die that is it..... Blackness. Not so bad cause you won't know anyway. Also as a scientist you get a glimps at just how unbelievably complex life is and it's hard to believe that there is not more to life/death then blackness at the end.
Anyway sorry for your loss. It happens to every one of us eventually, most people go through life in denial that it will ever happen to them these days because most people go their whole life never seeing or only glimpsing one or two dead bodies. Society is so geared toward coving them up and removing them as quickly as possible that most of us don't realize it really does happen, it's ugly, smelly, horrible and real.
No escape. 
I don't know whether this will help or not. I hope so.
For many many years I was a devout atheist. I tried, believe me, to find some sort of credibility in the mumbo jumbo that was rammed down my throat over too many years in religious schools.
Then I had a glimpse of the divine. It would be a huge exaggeration to call it an epiphany but the results were the same. I had suffered from relentless depression brought on by post traumatic stress. After confronting the issues, which was a very long and emotional affair, I experienced this "realisation" that not only would I never be depressed again but that I would experience eternity.
This happened two years ago. Since then I have not been depressed and my outlook is one of eagerness. I am very much at peace with myself, something I am very very grateful for as my life was a turbid mess.
I am by no means an authority but I have embarked on a spiritual journey which involves a lot of reading and a lot of listening and a lot of meditation.
I am currently reading Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. In it he makes reference to many spiritual teachers, Jesus of Nazareth, Mohammed, the Budda. One of the most striking quotes he deals with is by St Paul:
"Everything is shown up by being exposed to the light, and whatever is exposed to the light itself becomes light."
I am also in communication with a friend of mine who has just published a book on Kindle and Amazon, Sense and Nonsense from the Psychic World by Francis Lionet. It is well worthwhile reading.
All of this has completely altered my attitude toward death which was once quite a morbid subject for me. It has certainly made it easier for me to deal with the death of my parents and for me to accept that when my time comes I can do so in peace.
Hope that helps a bit!
Cheers guys for condolences and for your insights. I guess it's one of those questions each person has to answer on their own isn't it Japie? We'll probably never answer this question really either until we reach those pearly gates or blackness. It's funny, I remember vividly my first realisation of what death was when I was 6 (it hit me as I was playing imaginary cowboys and indians going 'I kill you!' with my mates). Mum spent the next few weeks comforting me that she and everyone wasn't going to die any time soon. For some reason my outlook and innocence changed that night.
You're right about society Reevesy. If people were more aware of death maybe we wouldn't be in the mess of a society we are in. People would be more appreciative of life and the little things like keeping up with the jones and even war would be gone.
Sorry to be such a downer on a friday arvo. Guess when that philosophical reflection hits you, it hits you 
Energy never goes it dissipates and Carrys on its all around us every breath you breath every step you take your ancestors are there walking beside you they are there that's why music and smells stay familiar the scent of flowers in a room are long there after the flowers are not best wishes and sorry to hear about your loss
My condolences mate... I know what you are going through since the same thing happened to me about a year ago.
I have also been wondering what there is in the 'afterlife'. I find the idea of reincarnation quite interesting and I very much like the idea of it. Can't say I totally believe it yet but for now I guess I find it the most plausible idea. Not so much the religions involved with reincarnation but just reincarnation itself. I also find comfort in thinking that I will return to earth after this life to do it all again! It would also explain the Deja Vu's.
I find it hard to believe in the bible because I can't deny the evolution theory and the big bang. However if the big bang was created by molecules colliding... Who made these molecules out of nothing?
Again newguy, all the best and stay strong. You will have piece with it at one point.
About six years ago I had three family members all die within the same year. I spent the next few years thinking that I was next. it's been really strange, but it has helped me get a bit of perspective on my finite existence. I think you only live once and don't think there is an afterlife. I'd like to think that we are reincarnated in some form. The relatives I had are now no longer there - I don't miss a day when I don't think about them.
My wife works in a nursing home for very well to do patients who are dying. She looks after surgeons, engineers, scientists and others who have made immense contributions to our society. The stories she tells me of what they've become and how they are treated is quite confronting. It's like their suffering is swept away but also prolonged by our societies desire to keep the dying alive at all costs.
It's not death that's difficult for me to cope with, it's the way in which you go that frightens me now. Some people will fight it to the very last breath, some people just go with the flow, others just drop off from the earth in an instant. What I've learnt in the past few years is that you really don't have too much control over it. I hope I go quick.
Very sad story on todays news in Melbourne on this subject - brought a wee tear to my eye:
I think loved ones who die are where we want them to be.
My dad passed away a few years ago, I was in a good place with him before he died.
I know he's in a good place now - he's with us every day.
The important thing is to have no unresolved issues, then we can survive these losses and have only good, positive memories.
I've been resucitated twice,
once when i was fourteen,
once when i was twentyseven,
one time i drowned,
the other time i was bashed and revived in the back of the ambo,
both experiences are deeply personal and cannot be explained in words
i have flashbacks to these events which i have come to accept and indeed relish as confirmation that things as we know them aren't exactly as we know them and what we are is experience
i could easily say i'm not scared of death, but the thought of ombak tujuh feathering on the horizon still scares me to death...
Sorry for your loss NG, I've always liked this quote for the Atheist perspective :
"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?"
What is a persons sole? I have been told the sole can never die. If your sole is your personality, my dog has more sole than most.
I think a humans life is no different to the rest of living species on this planet. You die, you get eaten, game over.
I am very sad for the newguy's loss. I lost my mum 20 years ago and have never gotten over it. It can bring my to tears at anytime
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when my mum passed i did not deal with it well. i missed her so much. she was my friend,my confidante,she was my mentor and i wanted her back so much. junkies,thieves and murderers all living a longer life than her. i started to hate. in the end i started to realise that i mourned not so much that she had passed,more that i missed her. i mourned for my own selfishness to be with her. i will always miss you granny grunt and know my tears are now filled with pride,happiness and joy that you were my mum.
I feel the same newguy, my auntie died early this year. I didnt get to go to the funeral as I had to take my Dad on an emergency run to the hospital. I went to the wake with Dad but I so wanted to go to the funeral. Closure is a funny thing.
Btw Dad is doing well and we are waiting for the results of his scan
Death has very little meaning.
(that statement looks horrible next to my username and avatar. it's not meant to)
