I can't honestly say I have any answers about the afterlife. I definitely don't claim to know what happens beyond death. But I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a friend while I was abroad. I was strugggling a lot spiritually...I had just come off of a semester at school in which I was very relgious, had a lot of very religious friends and subscribed to an evangelical Christian outlook. I had gradually been realizing I just couldn't accept this belief system, and was realizing I'd have to go back to Davidson, where I had never been 100% happy anyway, and face these friends with whom I no longer shared their beliefs. But I was also just struggling with what I believed and if there was really any meaning out there. And I said to my friend, "Life is so tragic. We live, we make all of these connections and friendships and experiences, and we make it through struggles together, and we build so much...and then it just ends. It's just over. We die. This is so tragic! It's almost like a cruel, cruel joke." But my friend came back with, "It's tragic, but in a way, it's also beautiful, because we know we just have one life, and that's what makes everything meaningful." So we decided that life was beautifully tragic....tragically beautiful. And I really think it is...life is a gift, it really is. It is something that is given to us briefly that is to be celebrated and enjoyed and shared, and the more you give of yourself and the more you love, the more meaningful and rich your life is.