This may be one of the most painful issues that any of us encounter in our lives: The death of someone close to you. In fact, it seems almost an empirical truth that the longer and fuller your life is, the more you will be forced into confronting mortality. The more people you know and the longer you live, the more chance you have of experiencing the deaths of friends, family members, and co-workers as you yourself grow older.

A friend of mine died unexpectedly last week at the age of 40. He was devoutly religious, his father being a deacon, and his older brother a preacher. And, being in the southeast region of the USA, most of those attending the funeral were also religious. We all dealt with it differently. There was much talk of God at the funeral, with many people consoling while confirming to each other that my friend was “now in a better place,” and that he was now “with Jesus.” In fact, there were many points of the service that had nothing to do with my friend or his funeral at all. Focus was intentionally shifted to God and Jesus, leaving little room for my friend or anyone else. One perfect example of this was that the eulogies given by the two family/friend speakers were limited to two minutes each (as noted in the event’s program), while in addition to a service full of chorus songs, a featured singer delivered two different solo songs, each centered on the “blood of Jesus,” that each easily passed the five minute mark. The preacher’s own, much longer, eulogy touched briefly on my friend, but still spent around 75% of the time belaying yet another message about how none of us can have full lives without the acceptance of this particular version of God.

But as an Atheist, my viewpoint was very different from the majority of those around me. I neither believe in heaven, hell, nor any type of afterlife. And yet, I found an odd type of peace at the funeral by shifting my focus back to my friend. To me, the funeral had nothing to do with where my friend was going after his death. I saw it as a celebration of his life and all of the people whom he had impacted during the course of it. I focused on everything he had done, all of the adventures that he’d had, all of the times we’d laughed and struggled, failed and succeeded. The funeral wasn’t really for him. It was for the rest of us – to remind us of the joy of life itself by sharing in how he had lived his.

My friend lived a short life by some standards – longer than many, though doubtless shorter than he would have preferred. But, the hard truth is, we all die at some point. None of us get out of this life alive. And, perhaps even harder to accept is that, none of us know exactly how long of a life we’ll have. To me, it makes no sense to weep for my friend’s death. I can weep for myself and for the rest of my friends who knew him, mourning our common loss at his absence. But, I don’t weep for my friend. He lived the life he wanted to – without regrets and (just like the rest of us) without knowing when the end would come. He made his life count, both for himself and for the rest of us.

Whether religious or not, none of us really know where we’re going after we die. Maybe there is some realm that our mind (or soul if you prefer) is sent to. Maybe there is nothing. Many religions claim that an afterlife exists. And, some even assert that they can describe its features to you. But, as far as empirical evidence goes, there simply is none. The afterlife is a conjecture. It’s a guess. At best, it’s a hope. In truth, the only life that we are absolutely assured of having is the one that we’re currently living. To me, that’s all the more reason to spend our time and energy making that life the best it can be for us and those around us. This is not an excuse to do whatever we want; It’s an obligation to live the best life we can. Worrying about where we might go after this life takes us away from embracing the grandeur that this life contains.

Attempting to overlay God, or Jesus, or an afterlife onto all of that wouldn’t add anything to my friend’s story. In fact, it may take away from it.