After spending the last 2 days reading over the information on this website, the blackness that has enveloped me for the last 2 weeks is lifting.  My nephew is in the final moments of his 3 year struggle with cancer that began at the age of 18.  This beautiful, intelligent, and caring spirit has been struggling his whole life with an immunodeficiency problem that even the doctors at the NIH in Maryland cannot figure out.  Our entire family has been riding this merciless rollercoaster of hope and despair with each piece of news.  The cancer is eating him alive and all through the pain he is still responding to the nurses (even the nasty ones) with a "thank you" and a "please".   And now we are waiting.  

Last Saturday, while i was trying to comfort my sister at the emergency waiting room, I asked her "What does Michael believe?"  She looked up and answered through tears that he didn't believe much in an afterlife, that everything was random.   She asked me to speak to him since he respected my thoughts given that i was the "logical" one in the family not easily given to fads and new age crazes.  

I panicked.  My search for answers started at the age of six but had intensified exponentially since that day.  I've always felt that organized religions were not the answer (including our own Christian Orthodox) ... just a mechanism to control the masses through fear.  How could a creator that is all loving and compassionate condemn his children for their misdeeds.  I believe in the central teachings of Jesus (love) but the afterlife in Othrodox Christianity just didn't make sense i.e. we only have one kick at the can.  Growing up I've always gravitated to the Asian beliefs of reincarnation and the notion of spiritual learning through successive lives.  Two years ago I promised the Buddha that I would never again eat the flesh of a warm-blooded mammal to save Michael ... still not eating meat (out of anger I thought about stopping but I will still honor my promise until my last days).  

After discovering this website I'm not as scared but I'm afraid that Michael will be "stuck" as it was referred to in several postings.  "Stuck" in some place not knowing that he has passed away or clinging to the physical world.  How can I be sure that a helper will be there for him?  What can I do even though I haven't yet studied the techniques?  

Thank you for any help and I am sorry for the lengthy posting.

Thank you PhantasyMan.

His name is John Michael Farhat, and he's on the 10th floor (palliative care center) of the Montreal General Hospital in Montreal Canada.

Thank you Thomas.