I remember a song from the 60's entitled "Is That All There Is?"  
It was very sad, but in spite of that, it sold a lot of records.  
The song asked a question that virtually everyone wants an answer 
too.  Our birth is a chance occurrence that places each of us in 
a specific point in the space-time continuum.  For our parents, 
this event is also a huge gamble.  Based on who our parents are; 
where we are born; what our family believes in; how we are taken 
care of in the early days when we cannot take care of ourselves; 
and then, how we take care of ourselves once we are able, we do 
the best we can to get by, day by day.  For most of us, it is a 
daily struggle to provide food, clothing and shelter for our 
families and ourselves.  A small percentage are fortunate enough 
to have been born into wealth and entitlement.  A much larger 
percentage are born into poverty and squalor.  A small percentage 
are very bright and a small percentage are very challenged.  The 
rest fall into the enormous range that is considered 'average'.
  
Depending on where you are, you may be offered an education.  
Whether you take advantage of the offer is a personal decision, 
but one that will have a great affect on the rest of your life.  

With a little luck you will find a companion to spend you life 
with; to raise a family with and to work together with in order 
to better each life involved.  Some number of these partnerships 
will be very successful, and some number will fail causing great 
pain and suffering to all involved.  And the vast majority will 
live a life of "quiet desperation" hoping beyond hope that all 
will improve.  And in the end, each of us will pass away.  We 
will face death not knowing what is involved; not knowing whether 
death is the end or the beginning.  To the best of my knowledge, 
no one has yet to escape this end.  From the most brilliant and 
the most wealthy to the least capable and poorest, our bodies 
all break down and our survivors are left to make arrangements 
for our final journey.

Ancient Egyptian royalty were buried with their possessions to 
take with them to the "next world".   And yet, when the pyramids 
where opened, all that was put with them had remained as is.  

Millions of people watch John Edward on his syndicated television 
show as he communicates with friends and relatives who have passed 
away.  Scam artists have been exploiting people for centuries.  And 
yet, virtually everyone I have ever spoken with wants to believe that 
death is not the end of the spiritual experience.  To be sure, most 
major religions rely on the fear of retribution in the "next world" 
to help keep the flock on the "straight and narrow" in this world.  
So, the question, simply put, is "Can anyone offer any proof that 
there is, for want of a better way of saying it, life after death?"

I can tell you what I believe and I can tell you what I have 
experienced to bring me to that belief.  Is it evidence?  It was for 
me, but it may not qualify as evidence in your personal court.  You 
will have to decide for yourself, what it is that you wish to believe.
  
At the age of 13, my mother was dying of cancer.  She had gone through 
a number of medical procedures but in 1958 there was not anywhere near 
the treatments available to deal with the type of cancer she was 
experiencing.  She had been hospitalized in August and by early 
November the doctors had decided that the best that could be done was 
to keep her comfortable and free of pain.  It was hard - very hard.  
On top of all of that, my father was not well.  He was afflicted with 
Parkinson's disease and had gone through two very involved surgical 
procedures to alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson's.  He had a job 
with the State of Ohio and continued to work, though I have wondered 
many times how he was able to do this, but there was a small disability 
check from my mother's employment and we were able to get by.  

On December 18th, I believe it was a Thursday morning, at about 5 a.m., 
I was woken up by the coldest wind I can ever remember feeling.  Our 
apartment was heated by steam radiators which were old and difficult 
to regulate, so everyone slept with a window open a couple of inches 
to keep the room from getting unbearably hot.  When I woke, I looked 
at my clock and saw what time it was, and then I went back to sleep.  
About an hour later my father woke me up to tell me that my mother had 
passed away about an hour earlier.  I realized that the uncommonly cold 
wind had been my mother, saying goodbye.  I was terribly sad and I cried 
for days.  But deep within I knew that everything was going to be all 
right.  She wasn't in pain.  And even though her body was dead and 
buried, her spirit had to have survived, else how did she come to me 
to kiss me goodbye?

My father and I carried on.  He had additional surgery in 1959 and spent 
the next twenty years in a full care facility.  I went to live with an 
aunt and uncle and cousin.  I finished high school, worked my way through 
a couple of years of college and joined the Navy at the age of twenty.  

Two and a half years later (January 1968) I was married to my wife, Irene 
Hoffman, and less than a year after that I was a father.  In December 
1958 my mother had passed away, and in November 1968, my son was born 
and he was named after my mother.

In January 1971, I was on board the USS Denebola (AF-56) crossing the 
Atlantic Ocean.  My wife was with her parents and our son, waiting for 
my to finish up my last six months of active duty.  She was pregnant, 
expecting a baby in late March.  On a Monday evening, I went to bed 
around 11 and at 1 in the morning I awoke out of a deep sleep, knowing 
that Irene was in trouble.  Well, I was thousands of miles away and 
there was nothing I could do, so I went back to sleep.

The next morning I told my supervisor, LT(jg) John Reed, that I was 
going to get as much of my work for the month done as was possible, 
because my wife was having trouble with her pregnancy and I was going 
to have to go home.  He reassured me that everything was all right.  
He was the paymaster and I was his clerk.  I prepared the next two 
payrolls and all of the attendant paper work.  Tuesday, after the 
evening meal, Mr. Reed came into our office looking very pale.  In 
his hand he held a message from the American Red Cross.  Irene was 
in the hospital and had lost the baby.  The Navy was very good to 
it's men when it came to these types of life events.  The ship was 
about a day east of the Rock of Gibraltar, and four days away from 
our first stop, Naples, Italy.  The Denebola's Captain, Carl Herrick, 
was the kind of leader you read about.  His men would do just about 
anything for him, because he would do the same for them.  The next 
morning we made an unscheduled stop just off the coast of Spain and 
he sent a message to a friend at the Naval Base in Rota.  A tug boat 
came out to meet the ship and take me to the base, and the tugs skipper 
drove me to the air station where I caught an Air Force flight back to 
Norfolk.  Captain Herrick had fifty pounds of coffee and five gallons 
of ice cream transferred to the tugboat as payment for their taking 
care of one of his sailors.  The provisions were passed at the same 
time that I was climbing down a rope ladder into the boat.  The Chief 
Hospital Corpsman was at the side of the ship when I was leaving.  He 
gave me two capsules.  He said that the evacuation flights back to the 
states were not the most comfortable and that I should take one of the 
tablets after I was seated on the plane and the other tablet about 
five hours later.  I asked what I was taking and he told me that they 
were just a mild tranquilizer and they would help the trip go quickly.  
He was right, of course, and by Wednesday evening I was in Norfolk, 
talking on the phone to Irene.  

On Thursday I was able to pick her up at the hospital and take her 
home.  The baby was lost because it was not growing right and there 
was something wrong from the start.  The whole problem was caused 
by the improper growth of what should have been twin girls.  One 
was stillborn and the child born alive was not able to sustain life.  
Nature was simply doing what it had to do.  Irene and I had three 
weeks together to grieve and heal and move on.  Having our son, 
Brad, around was a wonderful tonic, and by the time I was ready to 
go back to the ship everything was much better.  I did leave the 
Navy that summer.  The separation is very difficult.  Our servicemen 
are not appreciated for the hardships that they have to endure to do 
their duty.  

Over the years, Irene and I have experienced situations that can only 
be explained by the existence of ESP (extra-sensory perception), and 
while these experiences do not offer any proof of a life beyond what 
we know as physical life today, they do tend to suggest that there is 
more going on that we can ever hope to be aware of.

During the month of August 1998, Irene's mother, Gertrude Hoffman, at 
age 91, was in the last days of her life.  Irene and I were driving in 
to Toledo a couple of times a week to see her, and the hospice caregivers 
were very clear that Mom's time was very near.  We became convinced 
that she was holding on from visit to visit as her children and grand
children gathered around to be with her in her final moments.  I told 
Irene that she had to give her mother permission to leave - it wasn't 
fair to keep her here in that condition.  I also suggested that she ask 
her mother to remember to give us a sign when she reaches the other side 
so that we will know that all is well with the world.  Gertrude Hoffman 
was one of the strongest people I had ever met.  If anyone could do this, 
she could.

Irene conveyed this to her mother and on September 2nd , she passed away.  
The funeral was the next day.  It was a beautiful service.  Grandma Gert 
was remembered in the way that every person should be remembered, and she 
deserved every bit of it.  We all went to the cemetery and after a graveside 
prayer, as is the tradition in the Jewish religion, we filled the grave 
before we left.  We got back into the limousine for the ride to my 
brother-in-laws home.  We came to a railroad crossing and the gates were 
down and the red lights were flashing.  The lights stopped and the gates 
went up and one car drove through, at which time, the gates came down again.  
After a moment, the gates went up and another car drove through, and the 
gates came down again.  Another moment went by and the gates went up and 
our car was able to drive through.  We looked behind us, but the gates 
now remained in the open position.

We didn't think anything of it.  We went to the house and had a light meal 
and then had a service.  That night, Irene and I were staying in a hotel 
in Toledo.  In the middle of the night she woke me up to tell me that her 
mother had just come to her in a dream and told her that the train 
crossing gate was her signal.  

Could that be?  Why not?  I have never seen anything like it before or since.  
It's easy to believe that she was telling us that she had safely made it 
to the next world and that everything was okay.  I suppose a person could 
look for a number of reasons for the gates to malfunction, but I prefer to 
think that Grandma Gert was simply letting us know, just as we had asked 
her to do.
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