Floating downstream in a boat on a river, you can see only a little way in front of you, a little way behind, the nearby shores, and if you're lucky and the river isn't lined with the trees, maybe a far-off field or house. But if you go up in a plane and look down at the river, you can see the entire course of the waterway. You can see where it began, and you know where it will end. In a sense, the aerial view is like being given a vision of the future, at least as far as the life of the river is concerned..................

Death is a vision that never dies. I am supposed to be dead, but I experience the entirety of my life as if it were all happening at once. I float above the river of Personality that once was Shari Ann Cooper. I know her, I am her. but I am something else now as well, something blissful. Even as I poke into the dark corners of my life, my joy does not leave me. It is separate from personalities and events. My joy is what I am and has no name.