but at the current prices, I won't be reading it soon.
I didn't do extensive research like the authors, but I did have some comparative religion classes in anthropolgy. And I've had reports from friends and relatives about their own grief experiences. So I've suspected a psychological grieving role in reports from people who have lost loved ones.
When my sister died, my sister-in-law told me not to be afraid if I felt my sister's presence for a while because that had happened to the SIL when her mother died. My other SIL moved after my brother died because she said she felt his presence everywhere in their house and smelled his scent.
People do, in a way, live on after death, in the hearts and minds of those who miss them and grieve for them, and in stories told about them when the grief eases after time.
Sometimes their stories become inspirational, too. I never met my great-grandparents who came to America as political refugees. But hearing their story from relatives who did know them has inspired me with their courage to hold their values and their wisdom to escape when they could, to a country more aligned with their own values.
Even less admirable relatives or other predecessors can be an inspiration for what not to be and do.
If belief in the presence of a departed loved one brings comfort to grieving people, who am I to tell them otherwise? (Or to rob kids of the fun in telling ghost stories?)
Besides, none of us has been through our own deaths, so we don't have absolute certainty about it. If we are right that there is no survival after death, we won't be consciously aware of it to gloat over anyone with, "See, I told you so." And if there is such a thing as survival, then, wow, what a surprise. Then others get to gloat, "I told you so."
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