One of the great things about writing about movies for a living is that you see films that almost nobody knows about.

Like 1998’s After Life, a Japanese fantasy set in a limbo between Earth and the hereafter.

The premise of this haunting little film is that the Other Side is run by bureaucrats—people who have committed suicide working off their bad karma, we learn—whose job is to ease the newly deceased into their eternal circumstances.

Each fresh arrival is told to examine his life and pick one moment in which to dwell forever.

Did you really, really like that David Bowie concert? Now you can be there 24/7 until the end of time.

If your favorite time of day is first thing in the morning, while you’re still warm and snug in bed and gratefully stretching like a cat...well, you can snuggle there forever.

The staffers at this gateway to the hereafter—they work out of what looks like a government office building from the ’40s—take each dead person’s favorite moment and recreate it. Appropriate props and clothing are assembled and a set built. Workers will even create lifesize models of other people who shared that moment. It’s kind of like an elaborate magazine photo shoot. When everything is ready, the “client” steps into this environment, assumes the appropriate pose and—poof—for all eternity he will experience the emotion of that chosen moment.

One of the great strengths of After Life is its gently subversive sense of humor. The attendants who work here often joke about their guests and sometimes go out of their way to keep newcomers from making unwise choices. Apparently, men who die young often ask to be frozen in a carnal act. They are advised that after the first few eons the thrill wears off.

It’s impossible to watch After Life without pondering what moment you’d pick for your own personal eternity.

I’ve got mine. It’s about fatherhood.

It happened many years ago. Our daughter Blair was 5 or 6—a precocious, creative, amazingly funny little girl.

On this particular winter night, though, she was suffering from a whopper of a cold, a head-squeezing infection that left her little nose red from blowing. She couldn’t even lie flat without coughing and choking for all the nastiness draining from her rampaging sinuses.

She was miserable, unable to rest and feeling very sorry for herself.

My wife, Ellen, and I decided that I should sleep in Blair’s room, just so she’d know there was a parent close. If she was going to get any rest at all, though, she’d have to be more or less sitting up.

After giving it some thought, I told Blair to get out of bed, then climbed in myself, sitting up against the headboard.

I placed her biggest pillow against my chest and told Blair to get back in and lean against me. The idea was to present myself as a sort of overstuffed recliner.

And it worked. She nestled in, her head tilted back on my shoulder. We pulled the covers up and over.

Within a few minutes, exhaustion took over. Blair began breathing deeper. Soon she was making little snores, getting the sleep her body so desperately needed.

My night was less peaceful. The wooden headboard was unyielding. If I’d thought things through, I’d have put a pillow behind me as well.

But Blair slept. That long night, I listened to her gentle breathing (along with the occasional semi-liquid snort) and found myself filling with a profound satisfaction.

My child had been miserable. I’d made it better.

So if upon dying I find myself in some celestial halfway house, I know exactly what moment I’d choose to live in for all eternity.

Although this time, I would negotiate for a padded headboard.