I saw this question today:

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InterfaithForums.com-Where your ideas and beliefs count.

I believe in an afterlife and reincarnation. I still mourn when someone I care about dies. Mourning is for the living, a way to come to terms with the physical loss of those who have gone before us. We will not see them in the same form again, so mourning is appropriate.

I may believe in reincarnation--but I'm still debating on that one with myself though. Its not easy to think just because someones going to heaven or they are still living in the afterlife that its ok cause they're gone. I mean you don't have them any more so why should you not be sad that they're gone? They are away from you. Ok, so thats ego, but humans have ego. Its a fact of life. Humans are not robots, they can't just turn on and off their emotions like the flick of a light switch.

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When a man sleeps in his bed, his soul leaves him to soar above, each soul according to its own way.......
The Zohar

I don't give much thought about after life, there is so much here going on that I have not gotten around to it yet : )

But, when my youngest brother died a few years ago, even though I mourned I got through it faster than my sisters and brothers (we are 10 kids). Right before he died he was over at my house. He had a cold and I was able to take care of him. I remember me washing the dishes and he looked up at me and smiled. I knew at that time that his smile was very special. After he died, while I was mourning I kept seeing his face smiling. I would talk to him, telling him how much I missed him, he responded: But I am here. I still saw him, I still communicated with him. He was actually closer to me after he died then when he was "alive".

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May your awareness be perfection

I look on death as a healing and release from pain and suffering and that side of it we should be happy when someone is released .... but as when someone we love leaves on a long journey we still miss them.

The weird part of death is how people respond to it and have funerals and the family pressures and so on that are related to it... It's a little like marriages only with a funeral you have to do something more quickly in a pressured situation. I hope on my death there can be less pressure and fewer needless expenses. If we leave no instructions we can put our families in a bind and turmoil.

We can I think specify what we wish on dying and prepare our family and friends as best we can.

- Art

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"it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God."
- Johannes Kepler

This must have been a bittersweet moment for you. It is nice knowing that our loved ones are still around after death, but sad because they aren't physically with us. Thank you for sharing your beautiful story and a piece of you.

Having a plan for death can alleviate some of the family stuff that goes with death, but it doesn't always get rid of the sadness that you feel when you know that you will not see that person in this form again. I am glad that you have a plan, and that you are trying to spare your family as much as possible. You are very wise to think ahead.

I do not think of Death as something to fear; in my Tradition it is called "The Middle", because it merely means moving from one stage to another. Rebirth is common and, normatively, within the clan of the deceased. What is there to mourn when the depearted will, inevitably, return???

On the other hand, losing someone you love can be a wrenching experience, even if it is temporary; that's why parents cry when their children start school, or go on their first overnight camp. Death is a sharper, more sudden and long-lasting loss than that...so the effect is harder on those left behind.

But too much mourning can make it more difficult for the Dead person to make the transition from this Circle to the next; and thinking about them constantly merely delays their rebirth. So mourning needs to be limited.

I stated elsewhere thatit always seems to me that Christians seem to have a very inexplicable fear of death, and often have elaborate and extreme mourning. I do not really get it; it accords very poorly with their own eschatology.... it's very puzzling.

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Grassaf, Eolas

I do believe mourning has its time and place since I would assume we will miss the deceased. On top of that, sometimes it's best to let some of our emotion out rather than just holding it in. Like so many other things in life, "everything in moderation; nothing to the extreme".

Shalom,
Vern