“You want to know what I fear?” asks Alice, a widow, as she tips her head to the side as if listening for something. “It’s simple…it’s no more me!”

You could feel the panic pouring from her veins as she explained how the movers had come to take the last of her belongings from the home she had lived in for so long with her recently departed husband…and how she had nearly collapsed in fright with the realization she was moving to a retirement village…and battling cancer…and not winning.

She wasn’t afraid of the pain of impending death and she didn’t believe in an afterlife. So what was it that was terrifying her?

“I know I’ve had a full life…I’ve done what I wanted to do…It’s just…I don’t want to leave this life! I want to see what happens. Will my youngest son decide to have children? What will my granddaughter, Lily, grow up to be? …”

“But you won’t know you’re not here,” was the reply.

“I wish I could be religious and have a belief in an afterlife,” she sighs. “I know that must mute the fear of death for some people.”

It was Greek philosopher Epicurus who said, “If we are mortal and the soul does not survive, then we have nothing to fear in an afterlife.”

In other words, when the soul leaves the body, no awareness remains—We will have no consciousness, no regrets for the life we lost, nor anything to fear. When dying is simply ceasing to perceive, to feel, to be…there is nothing in it to dread!

Whether you believe this or not, look at the ripple effect of your life—if you have loved others and helped them…well, those things will never be forgotten!

Ergo, when your body is no longer thriving, the memory of you will last…whether you believe in an afterlife or not!

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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