This is my entry into week 8 of the Steemit Vision Quest hosted by @cabelindsay, please see this post to learn more:
@cabelindsay/steemit-vision-quest-week-8-life-after-life
(Photos are my own.)

Every woman who eagerly awaited the birth of her child knows this: There is someone in there. Biologically they are part of us, but we know they are a soul unto themselves. We do not speak to the fetus the way we talk to our stomach. We don't really have much to say to our belly... Occasionally apologize for eating garbage, ask it why it is upset, but we expect no reply. We know our belly is just part of us. Not so with our unborn child. We know that is an independent person in there, a developing human and unique soul. But what is the baby aware of? Is the baby part of this world? Not really, not yet.

Like most, if not all expectant mothers, I spoke to my unborn children. I told them things like how much I loved them, and how wonderful their daddy is. They may have picked up the emotion I sent but they did not understand the words. They have no frame of reference for this plane of existence. What is a daddy? What is love? For that matter, "Mommy" is not a person to them (What is a person?) she is the universe. She is everything they know - their source of food, oxygen, warmth, protection. Yet even Mommy cannot make them see a tree, or understand what a tree is, or even what the color "green" looks like. I am going to ask you to indulge me in some imagining, some fanciful speculation, while we peer inside the mind of an infant not yet born.

There is no sight, only muffled sound save a driving heartbeat. There is no hunger, no worry, there is simply existence. There may be self awareness, and if so we are seeing ourselves change daily. Fingers, toes, hair, we see them but we have no name for them, no real use for them. Over time we find ourselves getting a little cramped, but we don't know how to do anything about it so we simply endure. We exist, that is all we know.

One day the peace is shattered. The warm, comforting (if cozy) universe suddenly becomes hostile. It is hurting us, squeezing us so hard. A flood of hormones enters our body, we have no idea what these new sensations are about but we probably experience fear. Maybe for the first time, maybe the concept of "dying" comes into our awareness. Everything we have ever known is suddenly changing and we have no control over the changes. We have no idea how this will end. Then we see a tunnel, and there is brightness, and suddenly loud noises and smells and air on our skin and perhaps we realize we have died. The universe we knew is gone, we can never return to that peaceful, safe place...

This is how our life begins. The self we knew so well, the only "me" we ever met is gone and now we are a newborn, not a fetus. But we did not really die... or did we? Maybe it would help to have a look at the other end of our life?

"Michelle"

My husband worked with a young, vivacious lady we shall call "Michelle." She was, no doubt, her Daddy's pride and joy. She was very pretty, and spent an hour every day putting on make up and fixing hair and such. She then went to work, on time and there every day, where she provided dialysis services to desperately ill people. How could a Daddy not be proud? Then Daddy had a heart attack and died, quite unexpectedly. Michelle was shattered. She asked all her coworkers where they thought people went when they died.

Some told Michelle of their Christian beliefs, that her Daddy was in Heaven now looking over her. My husband told her the most honest thing he knew to say: He did not know where her father went, but wherever he went we will all be going very, very soon. Michelle decided to adopt the Christian belief. She took great comfort in believing her Daddy was watching her from Heaven. Unfortunately, her mother did not.

About two weeks after her father died, Michelle's mother committed suicide. When the Christian coworkers were asked for comfort now, they got a little antsy. It was uncomfortable for them to say that her Daddy was in Heaven watching over her but her Mommy was in Hell for being unable to bear the grief of Daddy going to Heaven. All the comfort the Christian story offered regarding her father was now torment regarding her mother. Michelle realized that my husband had told her the truth and at last she embraced truth rather than the comforting / tormenting stories about things for which there is no known answer. Sometimes we simply cannot know a thing.

There is no way to assure a fetus it is not dying. Indeed, some will die in the effort of being born. There is no way to assure the dying there is a life after this life. There is a pattern to our existence that CAN be discerned. It is a small data set, we can only see one life-time at a time. The lesson of that single experience, repeated by EVERY human ever born, is pretty compelling:

DEATH = BIRTH = DEATH = BIRTH = DEATH = BIRTH =...