A beautiful story of a conversation in the womb

The other day at the gym, I had a conversation with an 80-year-old man. He had recently lost his best friend of 75 years, and for the first time, he found himself deeply contemplating what comes after death. He wasn’t sure. He thought maybe there was something, but he didn’t know for certain. As we spoke, I could see the mixture of hope and uncertainty in his eyes—the same questions that so many of us carry.

And that conversation brought back a story I had heard a long time ago. A simple story, yet one that speaks to the heart of our greatest mystery. It is the story of two babies in their mother’s womb, wondering about the world beyond.

Inside the womb, two tiny beings floated in their quiet, enclosed universe, feeling the rhythm of life pulsing around them. They could hear muffled sounds, sense warmth, and grow each day in ways they didn’t understand. And yet, a question arose between them—one that neither had asked before.

“Do you believe in life after delivery?” asked the first twin, his voice filled with curiosity.

The second twin, more skeptical, frowned. “What do you mean, life after delivery? This is all there is. We live here, we grow here, we are fed through this cord, and when it ends—well, that’s it. There’s nothing else.”

The first twin thought for a moment and then replied, “But what if there is something more? What if this is just a preparation for another life? A bigger world, one that we can’t see from here?”

The second twin scoffed. “You believe in something that no one has ever seen. No one has ever left this place and come back to tell us there’s something else. There’s no proof of life after delivery.”

The first twin smiled. “Maybe no one has come back because delivery is the start of something so incredible, so vast, that there is no need to return. Maybe we’ll breathe air, see light, and move freely in ways we can’t even imagine now.”

The second twin shook his head. “Nonsense. There is no light. We live in darkness, and that’s all we’ve ever known. Besides, if there was something beyond this, wouldn’t we know by now? Wouldn’t someone have told us?”

The first twin hesitated, then whispered, “What if… what if we have been feeling it all along? What if we are not alone? Have you ever noticed how, when everything is quiet, you can hear something? A soft, steady sound… a heartbeat?”

The second twin paused. He had heard it. The rhythmic, gentle beat that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

“That’s just… I don’t know what that is,” he muttered.

“That,” the first twin said with wonder, “is the sound of our mother. She is all around us, even though we cannot see her. She nourishes us, protects us, gives us life. Without her, we would not be here.”

The second twin scoffed again, but there was less certainty in his voice. “If she is real, why can’t we see her?”

The first twin smiled. “Sometimes, we have to trust what we feel more than what we see. Haven’t you ever felt warm for no reason? A sense of comfort, as if something beyond us was embracing us?”

The second twin slowly nodded. He had felt it before—those moments when everything was still, and something soft, something unexplainable, filled him. A feeling of love, of being held.

“That is her love,” the first twin continued. “And sometimes, if you’re really quiet, if you listen closely, you can hear her voice. It’s muffled, and we don’t understand the words, but we feel them. There is something beautiful in them, something deep, something that fills us even when we don’t understand.”

Then the first twin’s eyes filled with awe. “I believe she is our creator. She is the one forming us. Haven’t you noticed how we are changing? Every day, we are growing in ways we don’t control—our hands, our eyes, our hearts… we are being shaped into something greater than we were before.”

The second twin furrowed his brow. “Even if she does exist, how do you know she’s the one who made us? What if we are just… growing on our own?”

The first twin shook his head. “But look at how perfect everything is. We are not shaping ourselves. There is something, someone, guiding this process. We are not here by accident.”

The second twin remained silent.

“What if,” the first twin continued, “when we leave this place, we find the light? We find her. We find love. Maybe delivery isn’t the end. Maybe it’s just the beginning of something even greater. Another way of being. A place where we are no longer surrounded by darkness but held in a light so vast, so warm, that we will finally understand what we have been feeling all along.”

As I reflect on this story, I think of that elderly man at the gym—unsure of what comes next, yet filled with the longing to understand. And aren't we all, in some way, just like him? Like these twins?

We live in this world, questioning what lies beyond. We search for signs, for proof, for understanding. Some of us, like the first twin, trust the unseen—we listen for the heartbeat, for the presence of something greater than ourselves. Others, like the second twin, struggle with doubt, needing to see before they can believe.

But what if death is only another delivery? What if this life is just a womb, preparing us for something far greater?

Perhaps, when our time comes, we will finally see the Source that has been with us all along. Perhaps, as we pass through the tunnel of light, we will realize that we were never alone.

Perhaps, just as a baby cries when leaving the womb, thinking it has lost everything, we will open our eyes and find ourselves in the embrace of something infinitely greater than we ever imagined.

Katiana