Speaking with Buddhist friends this week the topic was benefactor moments. An instance that you recall in your life when someone granted you an act of love, kindness or mercy. Although that moment may have occurred years ago , you can still recall the emotion and grace of it. It is, in a sense, outside of time. In the past but present to you in a real sense.
When someone recently has died we often speak of them as late. If you stop to think about it, that is an odd idiomatic expression. Now that they are no longer among us in the flesh, how can they be late? They have become outside of time yet we still speak of them in relation to our human construct of time.
In the case of my recently deceased Father, in some ways I feel closer to him now than when he was alive and living 1500 miles away. I think of him every day and no physical distance separates us…our relationship has become outside of time.
Roger Vincent Jasaitis 
On Hopi there is no word for “goodbye”. Theyt say merely, “I’ll see you again”, their world being a continuum outside of time…
Thanks, Fred. You remind me there is even a song with this title, “I’ll See You Again”, and it shows that the concept of “outside of time” is expressed over and over in art and poetry. How about “I’ll Be Seeing You”? I love it when Roger helps us to think even if it’s often bittersweet.
How fascinating Fred, thanks for sharing!
This is such a deep musing, Roger, on something we all experience but do not think of as extraordinary, when in fact it is. Thank you. Ginger
I was thinking about the practice of stopping the clock in the home of someone who has died. I found this bit on the web: “Its origin seems to emanate from Germany and Great Britain. They believed that when a person died time stood still for them and a new period of existence started without time. To permit time to continue was to invite the spirit of the deceased to remain and haunt unendingly. Stopping time was a way to allow the deceased to move on.
Bells were rung at a funeral and bells are the forerunner of clocks. The word clock coming from the word bell, and this would signify a new time period beginning for the deceased.” And, may I add, for the survivors…
Very interesting, Roger! Thanks. Ginger
Roger, you jogged my memory. Here is a song my Dad used to sing when I was small. I only know the first verse and chorus. There are many more verses. I believe it was written in the Civil War era. Johnny Cash has a version of it on you-tube.
“My Grandfather’s Clock”
My Grandfather’s clock was too high for the shelf,
so it stood 90 years on the floor.
It was taller by half than the old mean himself,
and it weighed not a penny’s weight more.
It was bought on the morn
of the day that he was born
and was ever his treasure and pride.
But the clock stopped-never to go again
when the old man died.
Ninety years without slumbering
(tick, tock, tick, tock)
His life’s seconds numbering.
(Tick,tock, tick, tock)
It stopped short-never to go again
when the old man died.
Wish I had a recording of my dad singing. He had a wonderful voice which most of his kids never heard except when he was being silly. Ginger
I am lucky to have experienced moments “outside of time” in my past. Thank you for reminding me of this fact.