Death is a monster; death is horrible.

Every now and then she looked around for tangible evidence of his having ever been there. Where were the butterflies? the blueberries? the whistling reed? She could find nothing, for he had left nothing but his stunning absence.

You're in trouble,' she says, yawning. 'Deep, deep trouble. Can't rival the dead for love. Lose every time.

Just Imagine. No illness. Ever. No pain. No aging or frailty of any kind. No loss or grief or tears. And obviously no more dying, not even if the stars shattered into motes and the moon disintegrated like a corpse beneath the sea.

Other than outwitting evil, waging war against the unworthy, there seems to be nothing for the inhabitants of paradise to do.

The deceased was the tragic hero, the survivors the innocent victims; there was the omnipresence of the deity, strophe and antistrophe of the chorus of mourners led by the preacher. There was grief over the waste of life, the stunned wonder at the ways of God, and the restoration of order in nature at the graveyard.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

Oh, may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again.

Are we fallen angels who didn't want to believe that nothing is nothing and so were born to lose our loved ones and dear friends one by one and finally our own life, to see it proved?…

Joy, joy forever, my task is done. The gates are passed, and heaven is won.

Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.

Our mission is nothing less (or more) than participating with God in this grand story until he brings it to its guaranteed climax.