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I am currently sitting on the deck at my grandparents' house. I'll probably be here (though not necessarily on the deck) all night, as we are all here in preparation for my grandma to not be here tomorrow. This is the first time I've experienced the death of someone I've spent a lot of time with over my life...I was sad when my mom's dad died because I wished I could have gotten to know him better, but this is altogether different.

Over the past week or so this whole thing has gotten me to thinking about stuff, especially the question that everyone comes to in situations such as this: what happens to the ME part of me when I die? The brain stops sparking, the heart stops pumping...some people think that that's it but I don't like thinking about it that way, partly because it just seems disconnected. Other people say that we go on to some other life, but I want to hold off on putting my eggs into that basket for now.

I was thinking earlier about the whole "I'll always be in your heart after I die!" thing. At first I had dismissed it as a dumb movie cliche, but I have been considering whether that actually might have merit as a way to think about death. Who is my grandma? To me, all I know about her is from spending time with her. Observations like how she cooks, how she walks, or how she drives, as well as emotional bits that go along with those memories. That is who she is. To someone else, she is a different, though similar, person since none of them could have the same memories I have. Death isn't just a machine that stops working, nor is it a transition to some different life, since that's just us trying to impose our own sense of consciousness on the people we love.

That's also a question I've been thinking about. How do I know that other people aren't just figments of my imagination? When I look into someone's eyes, is that a separate person or just a reflection of myself? If I believe that other people are alive in the same way I am, I'm making a leap of faith in the same way that other people might take certain events as proof of the existence of God. Right now it looks like quantum mechanics could explain goings-on in the brain and the phenomenon of consciousness, and I would take that as pretty good proof that other people are truly other people, since they have their own quantum brain thing going on in their skull. So for now I think it's safe to go along with that assumption.

But putting that aside, when you get down to thinking about who a person <i>is</i>, all we have to fall back on is our own experience. My grandma is the collection of memories that originated from photons hitting my eyes and the various other sense mechanisms, coupled with all sorts of emotions, who has occupied a large portion of the 19 years I've been around to have memories. I am sad because I wish she could have continued being a part of my life for much longer. People personify death and call it things like the grim reaper or cancer, but that's just because they want something to blame for taking their loved ones away and all that accomplishes is anger. I suppose the best way of honoring someone who died is to recognize the impact they had and not let it go to waste.