From: We the Victors
"So we listen to these voices, to these people who have survived. They speak of many things, in simple and profound ways. Like children finding shells on the beach, they appear to rush upon us without artifice. They look at life with the defenseless eyes of the innocent. They seem to move, to turn with special grace even when disfigured by their ordeal. They laugh and smile in a manner that must be familiar to angels.
They are different now, and they can never go home again—not to lives once lived. The effect varies, of course. With some people, it is less visible than with others. Yet all of them, in one way or another, have merged into a new existence with a greater openness to the totality of life. For some, it is too much to describe in words. They fall silent, unable to explain it. Others will take your hand or touch your arm while speaking—a physical linkage practiced most often by saints and sinners who know that words alone can never explain or harness the human spirit.
Regardless of any religious belief, they have experienced a last supper, a personal agape, a shared awareness that the loving substance of their mortal existence is destined to pass to others. In effect, they can never rise again from the table of their naked selves. And they continue to experience it. They are like all other people—only more so.”