musings on death

My dad is dying. You can read all about it here. It's made me very sad. That might sound simplistic, but it's the bottom line. I'm sad. I go and watch him die and I cry and it affects everything I do.
Today's 12 Vulture so it's a good day to let things go. Maybe my dad will let go of the earth today, but I doubt it. He is fighting so hard to live.
Last night I was talking to a friend of mine who is an atheist and I told him honestly that the only reason I can't be one is because I refuse to let go of the idea of an afterlife. I need it.
And that made me think about right-to-life people and how they think the sanctity of life is more important than anything. Most of these people are Christians and they have the whole Heaven thing. If you believe in Heaven as a place of ultimate peace and angels and clouds and all that, why would you ever fight for someone to stay here on earth, especially when that person is suffering, sick and in pain? Wouldn't you WANT them to be freed from their physical pain and go onto an everlasting peace? How can you believe in the fluffy Christian Heaven and yet want to keep people here on earth? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
It seems to me that the atheists should be the ones trying to keep people alive, because they believe there is nothing there after death, that you wink out like a candle flame.
I don't want to go out like a candle flame, and I don't want those I love to go out either. I don't know how I would ever let that go, or why I would ever want to. It's a comfort to me, like having a security blanket or sitting with a purring cat on my lap.
For me to believe that after all this suffering, my father is going to wink out and cease to exist would make me absolutely insane.
12.19.14.14.16 12 Cib 4 Ceh