The world will go on without you -- and me. Such a bummer.

Because all we know is what we perceive of the world, we can't imagine it going on without us -- without you and without me. But it will. It has survived the deaths of everyone from Plato to Abe Lincoln to Mother Teresa to John Kennedy and your old aunt and your parents and grandparents and everyone else who has gone before. Still, it's hard to take, no?

All we know is this life, whether we've lived it for good or ill, whether we've succeeded or failed, whether we've had good relations with our spouses/parents and/or children, etc. This is it. This life. We gave it our best shot. Now we're dead.

Give or take a good or bad decision or two not realized, this is our imprint on the planet.

The world will go on, maybe for centuries -- if you can imagine it: I can't -- with more and more children being born, with you (and me) receding into the far distant past, becoming just names instead of real people who led lives filled with difficult choices. We'll become names in diaries or headlines or on stones, if that. Eventually most of us will be forgotten, not only by history but even by our families. I know the names of my ancestors, but I have no idea how they lived their lives. And, in the future, no one is going to know how I lived mine or how how you lived yours.

So what?

We lived, we loved, we raised kids, we made the hard choices. Didn't we? Of course we did.

And we think we should be remembered for it. But stop and think: all those boys who got killed in WWI and WWII, whose bodies lie under oceans or under tons of mud. They were our fathers and grandfathers, fighting for our rights as a democracy, and they are beyond our planting flowers on their graves. We remember them through photos and letters; any way we can.

But they are gone, if not forgotten.

Think of those who are gone AND forgotten. The families shot and pushed into ditches by the Nazis. But the Nazis aren't the only ones to commit whole families, even whole villages, to horrible deaths. What do we do about THOSE people and families? They got no funerals, no weeping and remembrance. They were just shoveled into pits.

I think what all this means is that there may be something after death, but I don't know what it is. I don't know if we survive individually or as part of something larger than any of us. I can't think that none of our lives meant anything, since those of us still living find inspiration from some of the lives gone from this earth. I think, I hope, that it's more than we can imagine.

But it's still true that your passing, or mine, isn't going to stop the world from turning. It will cause grief to some of our relatives and friends, for a while, but life will continue, for them and for others not yet born.

I love the mystery, and I hope you do, too.

The dead often are forgotten, just because no one knows where they fell and are buried. Think of the thousands of Jews shot and pushed into burial pits. Think of -- you get the picture.

The world goes on without you, without me, no matter how elaborate our funeral, no matter how many heads of state pay tribute. A dead person is a dead person, and his or her fame on this earth has nothing to do with anything, since all this passes.

If there is any consolation in dying, it must be in the mystery of it all. Why was I here? What was I supposed to do? Why did I die? What happens now?

Nothing in science or philosophy gives a clue: faced with death, we are dumfounded. Even the smartest of us. We have no idea if we'll wake up again or just sleep forever.

No religion has credibly given an answer, although all try, so I guess the best we can do is be the most moral people we can and hope for the best, don't you think?