Emily, look at that star. I forget its name.

What do you think happens to you after you die?

Do you believe in heaven and hell? Do you believe in reincarnation? Or is there just nothingness? Or something else?

I've been wondering that of late. Maude and I talked about it in the wee hours of Sunday night.

I used to think there was just nothing. You died, and that was it. You ceased to exist, except in the memories and hearts of the living.

But not long after my dad died, and I awoke that night smelling his cologne, and my mom and Pat did as well, I decided there was something. I wish I'd awakened Nick, who believes I believe I smelled it, but...

I'm telling you: he was there.

Nick's mother lives alone, as his father passed away last year. She does not ingest hallucinogens, and one wouldn't call her imaginative or whimsical.  And yet, she awoke one morning a month or so ago to find the key to their silver chest - the key they'd lost 15 years prior - in the lock of the chest.

She believes it was her husband, letting her know he was OK.

Who else could it be?

Even Nick agrees that this is, undeniably, an interesting situation.

Last night Betty said that sometimes at night she can feel the weight of someone sitting down on the side of the bed. You know how you feel a shift? And she knows it's my dad.

My grandmother used to say that her daughter tapped on her bedside table sometimes at night. 

I believe this, all of this.

So I think there must be something. Life energy doesn't just evaporate like perfume, I don't think. And Maude pointed out that some people's sparks are so strong, so strong.

I know it seems weird to think that my dad would have a grip on life in this world, when he worked so hard to leave it. But I think he just wanted to leave the pain, not this earth.

And let me say that it's not that I need the dead here, wandering among the living all Les Jeux Song Faits.

I love the idea that my dad is somewhere, hanging out with old friends. I can picture him with Meg's mom, and with our dear friend Michael, whose pottery we now use every day, and with his sister the painter, and with his parents, if that wouldn't take too much of a toll.

If there is a somewhere, then one of these days Lou will be in that where as well, and she will have good company.