Party Sandwiches: Putting the Fun in Funeral

When I was younger, a teenager maybe, that time of life when angst and sullenness are most likely to define our personalities, I remember asking my cousin what she thought happened when we died. Heaven, Hell, Limbo, Nirvana, reincarnation, the void? Her answer was none of the above. You just lie there, she said, hearing out of those same ears, seeing out of those same eyes, your mind still working, your awareness slowly dying as your body rots around you but lasting well past burial. I was horrified by that prospect, absolutely aghast. The idea of lying silently, aware of the world around me but unable to act, and then finally being sealed in darkness without any external referent, just eternal impotent awareness in a box empty of stimuli… the thought is maddening. It also doesn’t make any real sense to me, now, scientifically or in terms of any religiosity or spirituality with which I’m familiar. There are studies that show that consciousness may linger for a few moments after death,…