What are we to do with those nagging "if only" feelings that linger - If only I had (or hadn't) said that. If only I had gone to visit more often, or been less of a burden.

Have they forgiven us, those who have gone on before? We have only our conjectures. But if death is an experience of consciousness, then surely it is of enlarged consciensness, of more inclusive vision than we know here. "To know all is to forgive all," the saying goes.

Perhaps it is in anticipation of that enlarged consciousness, already drawing to itself those who are near death, that our loved ones forgive us with grace and compassion. And if they don't, if the occasion just doesn't present itself, we can forgive ourselves on their behalf, confident that they would have if they could.

---Martha Whitmore Hickman