Wonderful thread again wpainterw. I wanted to add my appreciation to those who look forward to stumbling across your mostly complex and thought provoking contributions to SR.
The ruminations on death and what our life might mean..... important stuff, arguably the most important. I've lost a couple of relatively young people (50's) from my life in the last few years and another friend has just been given 6 months after his recent diagnosis. I think I'm saying that we none of know when we're going and it's important to remember that.
I've also been lucky enough to have some conversations with some very poorly people who wonder "why am I still here?". My answer (for me and my spiritual belief) is that if you're still here then there's a purpose you still have to fulfil, that could be anything and we may well not know the reason. Could be something as simple (and powerful) as having influence on another.
xx