Having worked as a hospice nurse for the past ten years I have been witness to the transition from this world to the next.  No matter your belief system, how you choose to worship or not, there is a universal truth to death, after this life there is ‘more’.  Watching patients making the transition, their vision changes, looking into places we cannot see, speaking with people we cannot hear, often coming to a place of peace we do not have.  Our journey does not end because there is ‘more’ on the other side of a breath, a heartbeat, the silence.

My mother read me Oliver Twist at bedtime when I was quite small, I don’t recall how long it took for us to finally get to the end- years I imagine, but this story for ‘more’ became one of my favorites. It flavored who I was to become, someone searching for more, even at the imagined end.

When Oliver Twist makes that fateful request of “Please, Sir, I want some more,” his entire world changes from the comfortable discomfort of his present existence- the orphanage.  He is thrown into the real world, a journey full of danger, and self discovery.  He finds himself doing things just to survive although he knows it is wrong, but which ultimately leads him to the path of his true identity.  Wow, how poignant.

‘More’ can offer you a small sparkle of light in the midst of your grief. We will always grieve no matter, we are human, it is in our hard wiring, but if you can hold onto the concept of ‘more’ it is comforting.  There is a great adventure awaiting all of us and there is ‘more’ after the transition of death, that I am sure.