Like many, I firmed up my moral and religious beliefs before I got to
                   college. There's one that still eludes me... and it's not the elusiveness of
                   this belief that bothers me as much as my reluctance to admit it does.

                   You've got a question or a willingness to debate? I'm a die-hard liberal.
                   Trained to answer. I'll face you honestly and treat you with at least as
                   much respect as you treat me. I know my view of everything-

                   Except the afterlife. I get severely insecure when discussing the afterlife
                   when I'm talking with someone with whom I'm not close. While my religious
                   beliefs are secure smatterings of Celtic, Native American, Spiritualist,
                   Animist, Buddhist, Shinto and standard Judeo-Christian understandings,
                   the concept of an afterlife always baffles me.

                   I certainly don't believe in a standard Christian 'Heaven.' While angels are
                   really fluffy and cherubs are cuter than puppies, I can't really picture
                   myself sitting on a cloud somewhere, and everything is okay. In order for
                   that to happen, a higher power would have to erase all memories of all
                   sufferings on this planet from my mind. My higher power would not do
                   that, nor would it perceive a reason to do so.

                   In some Native American tribes, it is simply believed that one exists in a
                   very similar realm after death, always having enough food to eat and
                   clothing to wear. Essentially, a Utopian afterlife. While this solves the
                   aforementioned problem of worry over sufferage in a Christian Heaven, I
                   don't know if everything could become 'right.'

                   Reincarnation is another widespread belief. I believe that all animals have
                   souls, so this possibility does appeal to me. But somehow, with human
                   logic and reasoning, I tend to think not.

                   Maybe there is just the void. I don't want to glorify myself beyond who I
                   am, nor do I want to be remembered in any eternal existance. When
                   you're dead, maybe you're just gone. I just want to go back to the earth,
                   someday, when I die. It does make sense, then, that we live for this life
                   and our families, and strive to do the best possible while we are alive.

                   The answer was so evident; it just dawns upon me now. The answer must
                   be this: our afterlife isn't in another realm, it is here. It is in the memories
                   we leave, and those we leave behind. In the children we create, with the
                   people we debate. When we make some kind of difference, that alters a
                   larger plane, one that we can't understand because we're simply not
                   supposed to understand it. So we do what we can now, and then we just
                   die. I think I'll be content with just dying, when the time comes, knowing
                   that I've left some kind of effectual legacy.

                   Perhaps there will be a daughter someday. And she will write. And she will
                   sing...
 

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