Final Words

What I Have Learned, and What I Think It All Means

So, the basic story is told, and though I have left most of it out, the person known, for both good and evil, as Richard LeRoy Stevenson is nearing the end of his life. It has been a very interesting run for the money. I have made a number of devout enemies, mostly within my own family, but I have made so many other friends who have treated me with respect and dignity, and who have thereby become true family members of mine, replacing those in the paper line who have disowned me. I deeply love the people who see me as a friend, and have accepted me in spite of myself; and though it is difficult at times to do it constantly, I even love those who despise me. In actuality, I believe that it really doesn't, or won't, matter very much in the final divine analysis. With God, or whatever is there, we are really insignificant specks that live insignificant lives within a Universe so vast that it is almost completely incomprehensible to us at this stage of the game. There is no doubt in my mind that our very primitive, yet important, existence in this Universe is but a very small part of a much larger picture that God is working on. We are a primitive species, yet we have at least evolved a small part of the way. We do not know what is beyond our own deaths, because we do not instinctively remember if we had awareness before we were born. However, my reason convinces me that the fact we have awareness now, means that there must have been some type of awareness before we were born, and we were most likely part of that awareness in some form. That being reasonable to me, it is also reasonable that continuing to be part of an ongoing awareness after our deaths is also a fact of the nature of the Universe itself. Whether someone needs to perceive that concept in terms of a Supernatural God, or in a, simply put, Living Universe, it's all the same. In any case, I have arrived at the mental position that, though I fear how death might happen to me, I don't fear what happens at the moment of death. If my awareness continues on, I believe it will be so wonderful that it will be like entering into heaven. I deeply believe that my present awareness will enter something better than what I am leaving; i.e. I will immediately be at least a better spiritual creature than I was before I was born into this life because of the mortal experience I have just had. I look forward to the experience that will follow my demise here on earth and my present state of existence, because I believe within myself that whatever it is, it will be better than what I have experienced in this life. During the span of my life thus far, I have come to love being who I am. I have enjoyed my life immensely. I have few regrets in my life, and even the regrets I do have will not necessarily be those that some people would expect me to have. I admit that I am one of the biggest sinners the religious world has known, according to its standards. Though often very slowly, I have learned from my mistakes, and I have slowly become a better person. I will carry what I have been able to learn through the valley of the shadow of death, and I will emerge a better awareness than I was before. If the God proclaimed by religions is the ultimate reality, God's nature is still love, according to nearly all religions. Since I have felt much love in my life, then I have felt much of God, and I will be taking much of God with me through that dimensional divide. To me, Love and Awareness are pretty close in meaning, so a supernatural God and a living Universe have to be pretty much the same thing.

And if there is nothing after death?
Then, nothing would matter at all?
And that would be okay, too.

My Own Eulogy

Richard LeRoy Stevenson
Born June 7, 1944 in Manti, Utah
The second child of Keith Grange and Viola Peterson Stevenson.

Richard was born to be different; a black sheep in his family; a maverick in life.
Richard followed not the precepts of other people; he always followed his own heart.
Richard loved his family very much, especially his parents.
Richard marched to his own drummer.

Richard always loved life and lived it to its fullest. He fell in love countless times. He loved many people, but he loved and his own thoughts most of all, as they were the major, and possibly only, constants in his life. He often said that the only thing he wanted done at his memorial service, if there were one, was to have a favorite classical piece of music played. Because Richard had many favorites, choosing this special piece was very difficult. However, at the time of his death, he had chosen Richard Strauss' "Death and Transfiguration," because he felt that this short piece of music most fully described and represented his life, with all its contrast, its turmoil, its intense emotion, its final, uplifting triumph, and then dying release into the eternities. He imagined himself hovering in the air during the playing of this piece, and then slowly drifting up and away as the music came to a close. Richard suggests that anyone wanting to memorialize him should simply find this wonderful tone poem of Richard Strauss, and listen to it in memory of him.

Richard loved Europe, especially the European cities of Vienna, Paris, and Venice, and though he lived in Germany and Austria for only six years of his life, much of his heart remained there throughout all of his life. He always liked to believed that after his death his spirit would travel the world, returning afterwards to his beloved Austria or Paris or Venice, to spend a great deal of eternity there, perhaps to be reborn there as another person sometime in the future, or in the past. Richard always entertained the possibility that reality presented itself in an infinite number of dimensions and lives. The desire to believe this was obviously a result of his intense love of the beauty of the earth and of the life upon it. It would make it possible for him to continue his awareness throughout all the dimensions and eventually see everything there was to see, and do everything there was to do.

Richard truly loved his life so much that he would gladly come back and do it all over again, and maybe even better. He often said that he would do many things differently. He would definitely be wilder, more adventurous, more flamboyant, more assertive and more open about how he chose to live his life. He would be more aggressive about what he wanted to do, and try to be less lazy about it, though he valued his kick back hours about as much as anything else. He would also more openly refuse to be affected by those who regarded him as bad or even evil because of his inherent qualities and life choices, knowing that judgmental people are not worth fretting about, when life can be so much more than that.

Richard meant no harm to anyone in any way. Most people thought of Richard as a happy, good-natured, likable guy, somewhat off kilter most of the time, who somehow survived a fairly long, uncertain, always changing life, and that he lived it in pretty good style. At least, Richard, himself, thought he did.

But now he's gone.

Maybe someday you'll meet up with his soul again.

And, then again, maybe not.

Finally, wherever Richard is now, he is still thinking of you, loving you, and looking forward to meeting you again sometime in the future.

Now, go party.

For my longtime friends Chris, Sherri, and Mark:

I prefer my ashes to be spread somewhere up in the mountains.
Or at the cemetery in Castle Dale over my parents' graves.
Or, you can do whatever you want to do, because I really don't care.

Go back to the home page, or go directly to Part Two of my site and the Master List.