Soul searching

The dearly departed lies, hands folded, eyes closed in stiff formality.  She looks vaguely familiar but if I didn't know whose funeral I was at, I would not recognize her.

Most funerals are like this for me.  There is something really gone when someone dies.

It is not just flesh and blood and bone that make up a human being.  There is something very important about the battery that runs it.  Whether you call it spirit, or soul, or animating substance, that force that causes the autonomic nervous system to function on its own takes something besides life with it when it leaves.

I see that at funerals and it makes me wonder . . .

Does this force dissipate when the body dies?  Does it go to heaven?  And if it does, how does it get there, where is it, what does it look like?

What if there is an invisible sphere where loose souls go to rest until another invisible sphere connects it with another soul and they drop back into time -- as friends, or mates, or even one unique individual?

Recycled souls, old souls, soul mates, by any name, unique individuals with connections that surpass understanding.

It's not a new idea, but it is a fascinating one and great fodder for a story.