I recently finished the novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I had seen it in a bookshop in Moab and then found it at my local library when I got home. It’s a quick read. I started it before going to bed one night and then finished it in the morning. When I read the last 30 pages in the morning, I found that I couldn’t stop crying. It’s the story of an amusement park maintenance worker and the stories of people who changed the course of his life. Something about this book resonated deeply within me.

I have always been fascinated by what happens to people after they die and how that relates back to their earthly life. My favorite movie of all time is “Heaven Can Wait,” starring a young Warren Beatty. In the movie, a professional football player “dies” in a tunnel, riding his bike and finds out that he wasn’t really supposed to die. So he’s given a chance to see his life from another perspective. And then chooses to return. In reality, we are given second chances all the time. We just don’t know it.

I am moved by the idea that our lives are intertwined for a reason, that we are here for a purpose and that both are a gift. It makes me realize that each life is on a sacred journey, with an unknown yet purposeful destination.

Last Friday, I visited my friend, Ilene. She is dying of ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Diagnosed over two years ago, she has been learning how to live while in the process of dying. She calls this Consciously Being and Consciously Leaving. She bounces between the two places from moment to moment. I’m intrigued by what she knows about each state that the rest of us could benefit from. What does it mean to "Consciously Leave," not in the sense of suicide, but in the sense of putting purpose to all parts of the journey? And how does this influence "Consciously Being?"

I’m left with more questions than answers and a feeling that we don’t have enough of these important conversations in our everyday lives.