Hi Tom,

Thanks for sharing.

Losing grandparents is tough. I lost both my grandfathers before I was twelve - and I didn't get to really know them or even ask them as much about the old days as I would have liked. On the up side I still have my grandmothers who are in their 90's ( and still going strong) and I get to hear wonderful depression-era, WWII and recovery era tales if I'm lucky a couple of times a year.

One of my granddads was already visiting old friends and relatives - while he sat in his chair with the oxygen for 2 month. When my grandma didn't bring them drinks - he got upset with her. Sometimes after she pointed out that those folks had died - this would just confuse and worry him. Of course after I saw one of the ghosts walk past his chair and whisper something in his ear - I knew he was not lying.

I don't offer condolences - because for me these folks are not truly dead, but simply out of the shell they used.

No one is a stranger. All of us here who post on this BBS are not strangers either - even though we may have never physically met in this life. We may have been neighbors in Rome, members of the senate, debating in Athens or hanging around the gardens of Babylon listening to soothing music.

We may have been Federalists, Mugwumps or Confederates. We may have watched in horror as Joan burned and wept in her ashes. Perhaps we cheered at the storming of the Bastille - or fled in haste. We may have worn the heavy armor and bore the heavy shield and sword of a knight in the service of some King. We may have worn the uraeus and dictated laws or put on the collar and taken vows of chastity.

We may have been aloft over occupied France when our planes and bodies were ripped into by shells from the ground or from a sharp-eyed Luftwaffe pilot.

We may have watched as Muhammed sacked the Kaaba of its statuary leaving only Abraham's meteorite in that square structure.

Yes, each here has a more diverse history than can be known and an equally adventurous future. My Grandfathers could probably already be young men, by now starting another family, and we may indeed meet again, each not knowing the other.

When the body is not responding and becomes a prison - and especially when the brain ceases to keep the proper cell-resonance for lucid thought - death is a liberation and not a tragedy, freeing the soul to build other bodies, live new lives, learn other lessons - and better ones!

;-)

Infinite vistas await!

SDAI-Tech1