I'm taking a psych class at the local community college this semester called Death and Dying, and as part of the course, I'm supposed to keep a journal about my thoughts on death, how it's affecting me in my life through the semester, and how society is affected by it. The class seems extraordinarily promising (last week was a mixture of morbidity and true grief) and I have high hopes that I will learn a lot about death, how to counsel others through it, and how to handle it my own self, whenever I should need to.

So I've procrastinated and now have 20 minutes to write this entry. That's not too bad, really, if I actually stop rambling and get down to the point, but that's a big if. I spent the past week only occasionally thinking about death or dying and how it pertains to me and I think I've learned that I tend to do whatever I need to to distract myself from the *true* idea of death. Not the simplified view that I, and many, take in day-to-day life, but the actual idea of ceasing to exist.

I've often said that I believe in an afterlife, because without it, life just has this abrupt and final end, leaving too much undone, unsaid, or undecided. However, I'm not sure I ever really put an in-depth consideration into it. Do I really believe in the afterlife, or do I tell myself to believe in it because I'm afraid to face that idea of life being so suddenly over? I still am not sure, because, despite pondering the query at several opportunities this past week, I don't think I've really even focused on the idea of life after death yet. It seems that, every time I consider it, I begin by thinking about a life close to its end, a person dying, but before they actually die, my thoughts have strayed.

On Sunday night, my mother and I watched a movie about Vietnam. All these young guys were so ready and willing to fight for and die for their country. Not one of them complained, and every one, as far as I could tell, was in the military by choice rather than draft. Throughout the movie I felt a strong connection to several of the characters (understandably, my connections tended to be toward the characters who'd just brought children into the world), and I found myself, toward the end, feeling very upset about the way the movie was going. I didn't want to see those people hurt, whether it was just a movie or not. Then, when I considered the fact that their babies would never know them, and that, in one case, he would never meet his child, I really felt pained. I really felt worse for the ones who would never get home to see their kids than the kids who'd lost fathers, and that made me stop to think.

Why is it that I felt more sympathy toward the dying and dead people than the living? After all, if a person is dead, do they even know they missed something? Does it matter to them anymore? Do they just cease to be?

So, I suppose the conclusion, based on that, must be that I do believe in an afterlife. I just can't be sure yet what that afterlife consists of.