As many around the world grieve for loved ones lost during the pandemic, many more yearn to comfort their neighbors and find a way to ease the pain. Where can we look for help?

Research by a growing number of scientists offers a window on some answers. In the last few decades, these individuals have been documenting a more expansive sense of life—that life continues after what appears to be physical death. Dr. Pim van Lommel, a Dutch cardiologist, has chronicled a number of experiences related by people who had been declared dead, with no measurable brain activity. After being resuscitated, these individuals told of consciousness that continued after all physical signs of life had ceased (see Pim van Lommel, M.D., Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience).

This scientific research supports a significant point made by the Discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy: that life is a continuous, eternal fact for all of us. When we understand this, we not only find comfort, but can also begin to experience a fuller, more uninterrupted sense of life.