Gandalf224, give me some crab legs, shrimp or steak. I don't drink much wine, I heard birds leave unpleasant deposits on the grapes (parody of a WC Fields line).

My mother, a life time Adventist, and dad, both long deceased, were devastated when I departed. Knowing in advance the effect it would have made it difficult to left. But I mentally accepted it would "kill" them in a certain sense because I could do no other. My mother once told me, "You mean I did all this Adventist stuff for no reason?" They couldn't see that I was following a higher value, integrity, honesty, and I didn't expect them to.

God and religion lives in the mind. Nothing exterior changed with the life of Christ. World conditions and people are the same as they have been for eons. Death returns us to our particles, atoms, as it always has. All we really have is today. Making a celebration of life is the best course. The afterlife is a "pig-in-a-poke."