In parts of Africa they have a unique funeral custom whereby mourners stand around the casket and then, on a given signal, put a piece of peppermint into their mouths. As it dissolves they are reminded that life for that person is over and has dissolved into nothingness. In our society, also, there are people who believe that physical death means the end of everything. But for most of us – and for most people everywhere – there is an innate sense that this is not so, and that personality does not end at physical death.
For Christians, that sense of continuance goes even further. Nothing says it better than those words from the Bible which say: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for those that love Him.’