After a few days, we start to smell.  Immediately, though, if we died while working out.

Do alcoholics rot as quickly as teatotallers?

Ahhhhh so you've met my uncle George then.....

The saved end up at a square dance?

LOL

Would you like smoking, or non-smoking?

Kidding!  It's all "smoking" of course.

/with apologies to Mr. Atkinson

Come on now. There is a conga and bongo player in the picture, so it most certainly is not a square dance.......... It's a fiesta. That means there will be burritos in Heaven. Good thing I'm a Calvinist because those in the bottom part of the picture are clearly in Taco Hell.

If there are burritos involved, I'd put up with the dancing!

Then again it is about health and aging because death is the natural (dare I say healthy) result  of life.

Hi iWonder@Cafe,

When we die?  Our hearts stop beating, we stop breathing and brain activity shuts down.

If you want to know what happens after that well, I have some ideas about what might happen.

Grace and peace to you.

John

seeler,

In our hospital most end stage cancer patients atre followed by the palliative care team- a team of doctors and nurses that follow patients in the hospital and at home and if the family and/or patient wish to know explain the "natural" process. They would also ask, if the IV should still be continued, as it prolonges the process.

They also help the patient with his/her last decisions and family issues- if this is so wished. What most amazed me when I attended a workshop by them, was that sometimes patients want to die when the family is not present- they keep hanging on until that moment the family leaves the room to go to lunch or for a shower.

Family often feels guilty about not having been there- but they have found that it can be the patient's way of being able to let go and go on.

I have heard of others  who hung on for days until a far away son or daughter got home to see them, perked up for a short time, and then died a few hours later.

Hi Rev.,

If there are burritos involved, I hope there's plenty of this:

This is a very good question.

I think if you are conditioned to believe in heaven and hell and question your own worthiness, then a coming death could be a very, very traumatic thing.

Hi seeler,

That would answer the question, "what happens while we die?" which, while being an interesting question, is not the one that was asked.

Nor do I think that any answer to that interesting question is one size fits all.  Every unique individual will face their own death uniquely.  We may recognize elements that are common to a good many deaths.  How they are woven into the narrative of a particular death will be as particular as the person dying.

Dying is like fingerprints.  No two deaths are the same.

As mentioned above there will be similarities, just as there are similarities in fingerprints and yet it is how the loops and whirls are configured that make up the narrative.  Death is a new frontier, having had the honour of taking that sojourn with several folk I have found that their are different paths to a doorway which they will pass and I cannot follow.

What lies beyond the door is the stuff of dreams and nightmares.

Or so we might be tempted to think.

Another intriguing question.  Just as different from the first.

Physically, I have observed that while the body becomes weaker it continues to fight to hang on to what little life it has possession of.  Sitting with a dying person gasping for breath can be an intimidating experience.  Nearer to the end there will be staggeringly long pauses between some breaths and about the time you begin to form the thought, "It is over." there will be another desperate gasp for breath from a body that cannot quit and that can go on for hours.

Death, like living, is not for the faint of heart or the timid.

As stated previously, parts of the body we used to take for granted now fail alarmingly.  Most often folk are not conscious and aware of it.  A good many, based only on the subjective experience I have, go in their sleep and in very little pain no matter what the cause of death might be.

Some have their friends and family about and can at the very least respond to questions by squeezing hands.  Some cannot even communicate in that way.

Grace and peace to you.

John

 The thing I feel most phobic about is people WATCHING when I die. I do not know why. I would like to die alone. It seems like the wrong moment to start a conversation.

AFTER I am dead, I do not care what happens to the remains: a landfill or recycling depot, a pet food company, fed through a garburator into the drains... whatever suits anyone facing the p^roblem.

It does look that way, so I checked a sample of the pixels to see.

Most of them range around an average of RGB 173 117 82 ish, but essentially the two groups use the same plaette range for skin colour.

Or brains play tricks on use when viewing the same colour against different backgrounds.

Ahh, but without geeks we wouldn't even be close to as far advanced as we are now.. we probably wouldn't even be on the internet!

When you croak, your soul passes to another dimension!

Irreducible Mind by Edward F. Kelly, Emily Williams Kelly, et al., a huge book, but it will give the reader the ability to actually talk meaningfully aboot the subject rather than "just" philosophizing :3

Morgan Freeman + Stuart Hameroff + Roger Penrose + Room Temperature Quantum Entanglement + Holographic universe = afterlife

EDIT: plus it has my current favourite model on the soul courtesy of that polymath, Douglas Hofstadter. With this model, we are involved with souls -- the more people we know and love, the richer and more widespread our soul becomes.