Question
What is the meaning of dying? Where is my mother now?
— Anonymous Caring.com community member
Answer
Expert Barbara Repa, a Caring.com senior editor, is an attorney, a journalist specializing in aging issues, and the author of WillMaker, software enabling consumers to write their own wills, health care directives, powers of attorney, and final arrangements.
This is the hardest of questions -- made especially hard since your mother isn't sitting beside you to give you an easy answer, like she probably used to do.
Both the meaning of dying -- beyond the end of life and we know it -- and where and whether a person exists after death depend on your own personal beliefs.
If you are floundering with this, consider discussing the issue and the possibilities with people you trust: friends, spiritual advisors, close family members. Also consider the old-fashioned method of going into a library or bookstore or library and immerse yourself in a title or two that just beckon to you for some reason or another.
And be prepared for surprises: Many people find that the death of someone close, particularly a parent, opens their hearts and minds to new ways of looking at the issue and to new beliefs.
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