My name is Mr. Dolan.  As I’m sure you have already noticed, the narrator of this story is myself, and this is the story of my death.  Though you will find that some things in this text are hard to believe, or go against anything anyone has ever taught you (or both), I ask that you read on with an open mind; and if such distrust in my words should strike you, I beg you to ask yourself this: how would you know better than I if you have yet to experience a thing like death?  If, when my story draws to a close, you still refuse to give so much as a passing thought to what I have said, I understand your position, and I will not fret for I know that one day, you will understand mine.

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Religion has taught me of a place called heaven, which (to my knowledge) is a beautiful white place that lies just beyond the giant golden exit of life.  It is a place that only good people can go.  If they are bad then they are sent to the world of hell, a black and fiery cave that sits beyond anyone’s deepest fears.

However I had always found it hard to ignore the scientific theory of non-existence after death, infinite nothingness.  Up until my last second I had never thought much of it, and I had always chosen to take what my parents had taught me as the truth.  But staring in the face of my own downfall, it was the most terrifying thought I’d ever had, more so than seeing my own son die before me.  In my last moment it was that shred of doubt that had terrified me, since in all honesty I did not know what the truth really was.  Something I had never realized up until then was that my life was more important to me than anyone or anything else in the entire universe, in all existence for that matter, and I think the same is true for everyone up until they die.  I don’t think that anyone could even fathom himself or herself less significant than anything else until they have experienced the complete loss of consciousness.  And in my last moment, surrounded by the people that I loved and cherished the most, I was horrified by what I would (or wouldn’t) perceive once I was fully gone.  It was the most horrifying and awful thing everyone will go through, the thought that you will cease to be a factor in your own life.

And then you start to feel yourself go, and that horror becomes real.  Your conscious self starts to slip into a place between reality and somewhere else, and at first glace of this “somewhere else,” all you see are colors, horrible, abhorrent, and bright flashing colors.  You try as hard as your life will let you to not focus on these colors, to focus on the beautiful faces of your loved ones, but all that does is slow their quick approach on your senses.  A billion thoughts race through your mind, as you would expect, however you have absolutely no clue the quantity of horrible things that flood your brain in that last split of a second.  Thoughts like “What will happen to my feelings when I’m gone” will drive themselves down a million miles into your soul.  Everybody in their final moments, no matter how religious, will completely ignore the existence of God, for all human beings are selfish, and as previously stated, the most important thing to anybody in this world is themselves.

I remember being faced with the fact that there are problems that I had at the time that would never be resolved, such as redeeming my most abysmal sorrows and regrets, and being sad that I would never able to put an end to the suffering and pain that they brought me, no matter how much I chose to ignore and forget them in life.  That was the scariest thing of all.  Upon the flashing colors that flooded my vision I saw my father’s face, and I became sorry knowing that I would never be able to truly forgive him for fuming anger at me at various times, and that I would never be able to apologize for the times that I had done anything but misuse his trust and respect.

However a thought occurred to me here.  A question that nearly made all of my fear and sadness disappear instantly.  If this is what I felt towards my father when I died, did he feel the same things toward me when it was his turn all those years ago?  I came to the realization that he did forgive me and he did accept my apology, in his own way of course.  He had found love for everything that had ever happened to him, just as I did not too soon after the thought entered my mind.

It was here that I saw a type of beauty in death: everyone will satisfy his or her yearning for redemption, no matter how troubled they were.  The thought that true peace with yourself and everyone else was what existed after the lights went out was amazing.  It was here that the existence of God or any god was altogether denied within me.  In that last second I no longer believed in a higher being, or in selling my soul to that higher being, I only believed in me.  And although I did feel guilt for going against the teachings of my mother and grandmother, I knew that they had found a reconciliation of their own.

With my infinite feeling of unity with everything that had ever happened to me in life, I was done; my life was full and complete.  I was happy, I couldn’t have ever been happier.  If I had had time I believe I would have broken into tears.  However once I had come to my peace, I knew that the only thing left in life for me was death, and then I floated away.  And although I can’t quite remember, I do think that a smile had stretched across my face.

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I come to you now as a ghost, simply put.  I am a force.  I am a mind without a body or brain.  However to be completely honest I will never be able to describe to you what I am.  I am an omnipresent being that stretches all across the infinite (and infinitely small) universe, however not even the word infinite can describe what I am.  It is my belief that infinite is nothing more than a finite word to describe the unfathomable.  I cannot be perceived and I cannot perceive anything myself.  I am simply here.

I will forever be here in this eternity, floating amongst the stars and dancing through the minds and memories of those who remember me.  And in this infinity I am all knowing.  Everything that I think is the one and only truth, and that is the true definition of being free.  And being free is the true definition of happiness.

One day you will be faced with what I have faced, and you will find your own redemption. And not too soon after, you will be here by all by yourself, but you will not feel alone.  And then you will be as I am now, patiently awaiting the next beautiful step in your consciousness, whatever that may be.

The End