A Galactic Walk

What do you believe happens to our souls when we die?

Do you believe in the idea of human life possessing a soul to begin with?

My dad was a man of science. Now suffering from Alzheimer’s, he may or may not answer if you were to ask him if he believes in God.

I’ve previously written that he was “not absent of faith, yet solitary in his spirituality”. Basically stating that even though he didn’t actively practice a religion or attend church, he often talked about faith, and believing in something bigger than himself.

Early in his life, his writings were philosophical, questioning religious beliefs and making comparisons of religion, science, and exploration.

He wrote the following poem in 1970 when he was about to turn 25 years old. Now, 54 years later, at the age of 79, he is nearing the end of his life. I wish he could tell me what he thought, but Alzheimer’s has robbed him of that possibility.

Here is his idea of what happens to our soul when we die:

From meteor to meteor, asteroid to asteroid, through the timeless empty mass of a faded meteoric storm.

I have transversed the universe already an uncountable number of times, and for what? Only to find the same thing as when I left.

The same cluttered void. This was and probably is the only bit of void that has a mass, which is solely contributory to the combined masses of its void.

Hopping from one life-giving nebulae to another, trying hard to osmotically receive the life giving secret of the nebulae.

Then only to cast shiftlessly and endlessly from one dead star to another.

Your body fragmented by the solar stormed surfaces of the celestial bodies of space and time.

I am weary now, and I must rest like the dead star; in a silence of atmospheric serenity.

— C.R.G. – March, 6, 1970