I think you will see clearly, from what I have said, That this earthly life, when seen hereafter from heaven, will seem like an hour past long ago, and dimly remembered; that long laborious, full of joys and sorrows as it is, it will than have dwindled down to a mere point, hardly visible to the far reaching ken of the disembodied spirit. But the spirit itself soars onward. And thus death is neither an end nor a beginning. It is a transition, not from one existence to another, but from one state of existence to another. No link is broken in the chain of being; any more that in passing from infancy to manhood, from manhood to old age. There are seasons of reverie and deep abstraction, which  seems to me analogous to death. The soul gradually loses its consciousness of what is passing around it; and takes no longer cognizance of objects which are near.  It seems for the moment to have dissolved its connection with the body. It has passed, as it were, into another state of being. It lives in another world. It has flown over lands and seas; and holds communion with those it loves in the distant regions of the earth, and more distant heaven. It sees familiar faces, and hears beloved voices, which to the bodily sense are no longer visible and audible. And this likewise is death; save that, when we die, that soul returns no more to the dwelling it has left. -Longfellow