Life after death: I want to believe

Painting by Billie based on a photo by David Muench

I've lost my share of loved ones. Probably more than my share for my age. Parents and grandparents, my sister. Aunts and uncles. My favorite uncle Richard died of cancer in 2002. I lost Nelson, one of my closest friends in the world, to AIDS. And John, a man I was involved with for a long while and nearly married three times, died a couple of years ago.

My sister Ruthie

After we lose someone we're very close to, the world is never quite the same. When my sister Ruthie died suddenly in March 1994, it felt like a part of my world just ended, like there was this immense, Ruthie-sized hole in it. We all know intellectually that we will die someday, but that day was when my own death became real to me. If Ruthie could die, then I knew in my heart that I would, too.