by Claudia Windal

Created on: February 14, 2010   Last Updated: February 15, 2010

Following death, there are two entities that exist: the physical body and the spirit or soul. As a funeral director, I find that surviving family members often tend to be nearly fanatical regarding the care of the body. Elaborate funerals and interments (burials) are planned. Caskets and vaults (grave liners) that often equal a yearly house payment, are ordered while those who are responsible for these arrangements assure everyone that "Mom is comfortable" or that "He looks as if he is sleeping." Down deep, we know that our mortal bodies will eventually return to the earth and that years from now, only the most natural components of the body will exist as "dust."

What happens to our essence (soul or spirit) after we die, involves much more speculation than what happens to our bodies. Cultures imbued with religious traditions speculate that the soul survives either in "heaven" or in "hell." This placement is predicated upon how one has lived their life in relationship to God and humankind. Many religious traditions and expressions believe in either life as spirit, or reincarnation as animal or human. This is certainly understandable in that most of us don't want to think that following death, nothing remains of us in some form or another.

For years, I found stories of people "feeling" their deceased loved one near them, hokey at best. Several months after my father's death from complications of lung cancer, I walked into my kitchen, and there "stood" my father. He was dressed in his best business suit, had a smile on his face, and he just stood there. I couldn't speak, or approach him. I first thought hat I was delusional with my own grief surrounding his death. Suddenly, I turned around and went back outdoors. When I returned to the kitchen several minutes later, no one was there. No one and nothing, appeared to by my father. Despite that, I couldn't shake the feeling that he had been there with me.

Near the first anniversary of Dad's death, I was celebrating the Eucharist in an African American Episcopal parish. The choir was nearing the end of their offertory anthem and I felt a hand resting on my hand on the altar. Of course there was no one visibly standing with me. Then I realized that it was Dad. I quietly whispered to him. "what are you doing in an African American Church of all places?" A moment or two later, I felt a squeeze of my hand and then nothing. Once again, Dad was gone.

Sitting at my desk as I write this, I can see pictures of Sister Dorothy

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