When I was a kid I spent more time at my paternal grandparent’s home than I did my own. I would sprint across my front yard with my mother looking on, and made my way toward my grandmother, who greeted me with a daily smile and let me inside. For the most part, that brief moment of admission into her home was the last she saw of me that day. I visited grandma’s house for one reason: her back yard.

A transplant from England, my grandmother is a prodigy green thumb, and in the days of my youth, the host of an amazing back yard aviary. She raised peacocks, guineas, peasants, and my favorite…chickens. I spent hours among the hens, digging up insects for them, walking among them, and accompanying them in the roost as they experienced the pains of egg delivery.

It came to no surprise then to my mother years later when my father brought home a clutch of chicks with the intention to raise them for food that I had given all twelve of them names by the next day. A close, shephard-like bond developed between myself and the chicks who followed me around the yard. I became their master, their protector, and as I stood watch every evening in their pen as their filed into their roost, I considered them my friends.

This relationship was especially difficult when I had to face the difficult reality that comes to us all: death. My chickens were very healthy, but as the Buddha pointed out, sickness comes to us all. One of my hens (her name was Fluffy) became very sick. I couldn’t focus at school and would come home every day to sit beside her, tormented and helpless. Eventually my parents and grandmother convinced me that the only thing we could do was to end her suffering. They asked if I wanted to do it, but I couldn’t bear the idea of taking her life. My grandmother gently took Fluffy into her arms and drove her down the country road toward their home. I sat in the pen with my other hens and stared at my grandparents’ home beyond the neighboring hill and waited. A shotgun blast thundered from their house and echoed throughout the countryside. I shuddered as I lowered my head and tears fell into my lap.

As strange as it may sound, raising chickens provided my first education in death. I remember the anguish of loss and wondering why she had to suffer. Where was she now? Is there a separate heaven for chickens? Would I see her when I die, or was the life I just witnessed gone forever?

Nearly every faith tradition, at least the ones I’ve studied thus far, have some idea about the hereafter. The Hindus (in general) believe in the transmigration of the soul. One’s essence moves from physical form to physical form until their karma works out and they finally join with the ultimate reality, Brahman. For Baha’is, there is a heaven, however depending on one’s development in this life, growth and progression still exists in the next until union with God is achieved. Zarathushtis also have a paradise-like state–the “place of song”–that one enters after crossing the Kindvar Bridge and being judged by their own pure conscious in the form of a beautiful maiden. Jewish ideas of the afterlife vary greatly. Some consider death a time of eternal rest in the grave. Others do not believe in an afterlife at all, while some hold that the virtuous and observant Jew will spend eternity with God. Buddhist in general believe in rebirth (as a transfer of karmic energy, not the transmigration of the soul). The goal for most Buddhists (especially in the Theravada tradition) is to reach Nirvana, a state of simultaneous existence and non-existence in which one is completely void of self and desire. For those who don’t meet specifications in this life, there is higher rebirth in the human and heavenly realms.

For religion, other than a relationship or identity with the divine, the concept of an afterlife appears to be the greatest concern. But with all of these divergent theories on our destiny after death (and there will be more this year)…which one is correct? Or are any of them correct? Why are we so preoccupied with thoughts of the hereafter?

When Fluffy died, I wanted there to be a place of rest for her. She was a good, loyal hen who deserved a peaceful existence beyond the torments of life’s struggles. But looking back, was hoping for a “chicken heaven” simply my attempt to cope with her demise? For me, Fluffy had a personality. I could distinguish each hen’s voice from the others and therefore I believe in their individuality. They had personalities…a soul.

Or, in my great love and compassion, had I projected this notion upon them?

Humans are successful as a species for one reason: Our imagination. We can superimpose a separate reality on the world around us and in fact bring such a mentally fabricated world to pass. We project ourselves into a probable (or preferred) future. Is that heaven or hell? Because we have the power to mentally walks the streets in our minds, do we as a result have a hard time not seeing ourselves in the future after our death…or the deaths of loved ones like your mother, your spouse, your child, my hen?

I don’t know the answer.

Many religious figures have come and given us their take on the question, often claiming to speak from experience or authority beyond this world. Are they correct? Which one, if any? Is the afterlife just one big after party with ambrosial kegstands? I think we often forget that our religious leaders, even the founders of the faiths, were human beings who fondled at hems of uncertainty just like the rest of us.

What are your thoughts on death? Is this it or do our souls/spirits/essence transcend this plane to another? What if somehow we discovered with 100% certainty that there is no afterlife, that once your body fails, your mind and all its processes simply drifts off into a cool, black nothing? How would your life change and how would you live? Could you still behave yourself in life without the promise of a reward later?