The death of my father has made me think more deeply about the unavoidable reality of life beyond this life, and the idea that we are immortal beings. That someone we so love could ever simply "cease to exist" strikes me as manifestly absurd, and indeed as the vilest of lies imaginable. And if we believe that materialist/atheist lie -- that "this is all there is" -- we ourselves participate in it and somehow partake of death by doing so, and begin to cease to exist ourselves.