She hesitated.

She began to see that going back was going to be a decision that she should not take lightly. Suppose no one wanted her back?

She would go, she couldn’t say no to the opportunity being given her, but, in doing, so she would have to think carefully about how she would do it .

And besides she had questions for the group before her. Who were they? And where exactly was this place.  How could she know this was not a dream despite what they were telling her?

”Have you made a decision yet?” one of them said. She stared trying to see his face.

This was another aspect of all this. Her interlocutors were not so much people as apparitions, ghost-like and vague.

She stared at the one who seemed to be the leader trying to make out his features beneath the hood they all wore.

She didn’t answer-staring at him.

His face while shrouded was nonetheless sometimes visible and she could see a face just for a second and then it would change to another face.

He seemed to have a constantly shifting face. They all did.

She peered at him once again and was shocked to see  that it vaguely resembled her grandmother but not exactly,

Then quickly it instantly morphed into another face one she didn’t recognize and then shifted again to yet another unfamiliar face. Perhaps this is all some sort of hallucination she thought.

”Who are you people?” she heard herself say. “Are you real people at all?”

The face smiled at her from beneath the hood.

“Oh, we are real enough, he said.”

“Are you dead?”  she asked.

“Well dead is too strong a word,” the face said now shifted to yet another face.

”You can say that we have all passed on and some of us, like ourselves, are guides for those like you who are sometimes granted dispensation to go back for a short time.”

“But who are you,” she persisted.

“Well we are many.

All in each one of us are the many.”

“Yes” she prompted

He hesitated, looking at the others unsure it seemed of how much he should reveal to her.

Deciding, he continued.

”Well think about it this way. We in life think of our selves as individuals, separate personalities, persons each with our own lives, families, hopes and dreams.

But that is not actually true . In life we have that illusion, but here at the next stage we come to our natural and real state of being.

We are many, we are those who have passed on, those who remain, and those we did not even know in life; we are all united by spirit, spirit joins and allows transcendence among all parts.  Spirit is the unification of all things living and what you call the dead. That is why your spirit can communicate with those whom you might encounter when you return. If you decide to return, that is.”

“You see.” he said, “all is connected to all at all times to all things in the entire universe.”

”It is the way. The living do not understand this sometimes-that  they are merely parts of a larger whole.”

“Larger whole?”

“Yes, larger whole.”

“What whole,” she said slightly irritated.

“Well the whole is everything, the heavens, the stars, all things living past, present and future; all is part of the whole.

It includes the sum of all things he said simply.

Death is the end of the separation by which some lead their lives..

 .

“So” she said are you telling me this is reality?”

“Yes we, welcome those like you home to the all that is-the all which includes both the living and the dead.”

 She paused thoughtful finally asking
.

“Are all my relatives then still alive?” she said thinking about her grandmother.

“Why yes, alive but part of the Re-Mergence.”

“Re-Mergence?” she asked.

“Yes you have remerged into the unity of all.”

She stopped for moment to think about what was being said to her.
It was overwhelming and surreal but at the same time made perfect sense.

Finally, she asked what for her was the big question.

“Is there?” she started and then hesitated.

“Is there a God?”

He looked at her intently without responding.

To be continued.