I'm not a PALS, merely a caregiver of a PALS but this is a subject I've spent years thinking about for reasons outside the scope of this thread. Most people get very uncomfortable when I speak of this but here's my story: Some 17 years ago when my oldest daughter was just a couple of months old I had what I believe to be a glimpse of what some might call the "afterlife". At the time I was working a second shift and spending the morning/early afternoon taking care of her. She was a very pleasant baby and we normally spent most of the morning dozing on the couch, me on my back and her sleeping peacefully on my chest. One morning as I lay there "sleeping" I sat bolt upright. I clearly thought "I'm going to drop the baby", but when I looked down I saw myself peacefully sleeping with her on my chest. At that point I literally "flew" through the atmosphere, at a speed way beyond anything I've ever experienced. I found myself in an alpine meadow, all alone, but with a presence all around me. I felt like I was home, amongst family and friends. It's kind of hard to explain but I felt like I was there just to put my mind at rest, that everything I was to experience in the future wasn't really anything to be overly concerned about. Now, some might think the emotions of being a first time father and all the changes that come about during that time of life might have triggered some crazy dream and this is all in my head. Truthfully though, I never felt stressed out about being a father, it felt like the most natural thing in the world to me. Even now, 17 years and three more kids later, it seems perfectly normal to me to be raising these kids. I'm very aware of my shortcomings as a father as well as my strengths. I feel much the same about my efforts as a caregiver. That episode though, 17 years later is as etched in my mind as anything that's ever happened to me. I'm not religious, never have been, but I'm absolutely convinced that there's more to life than what we see here on earth. The one overriding thing I can say is: I haven't been afraid of death since that day. I may not know what the answer is, but I'm absolutely sure there's no reason to fear it.