Parsing reality

The definitions of the word real from dictionary.com seem pretty straightforward:

Real: 

1. true; not merely ostensible, nominal, or apparent

2. existing or occurring as fact; actual rather than imaginary, ideal, or fictitious

3. being an actual thing; having objective existence; not imaginary

4. being actually such; not merely so-called

5. genuine; not counterfeit, artificial, or imitation; authentic

For more than four decades, I'd have told you that I knew what was real and what was not.

But now? Not so much. Each of those definitions has become subjective for me. Quantum physics demonstrates that time isn't linear, as we like to pretend it is. So is it real that time is passing? Is it real that the past is the past and the future is the future and the present is that fleeting moment between the two? Or do all times exist at once?

When my body knows one thing, my mind another, and my heart yet something else, which is real? Which one wins? Or can they co-exist, each with their own truth, seemingly contradictory and yet somehow combining to create a more acceptable whole?

In A Widow's Story, Joyce Carol Oates shared many notes she received from friends. I find sense in what Derek Parfit told her:

When someone I loved died I found it helpful to remind myself that the person was not less real because she wasn’t real now, just as people in New Zealand aren’t less real because they aren’t real here.

I'd love to know more about what Sandy thinks of all of
this. Is she experiencing all of time at once? Can she see
forward and backward and off to the side? And if she has
the omniscience some claim the dead have, why doesn't
she know how to come back with a body? Surely if she
doesn't want to return because her new existence is so
wonderful, she wouldn't be so insistent that I stay here.

Sandy died. I've told hundreds of people, and I've said it matter-of-factly. I understand what the words mean. I experienced her dying process, the moment of her death, and the aftermath. But those memories seem no more real to me than the time we've spent together in visitation dreams, or my sense of her being with me when I kayaked on her birthday. She died; we've created new memories together since then. Are those new memories any less real than the ones we shared together when she was alive?

And did she really die? Her heart stopped, and so did her breath. Her body became a subject for science and then was reduced to less than five pounds of ashes. But what she's experiencing now is surely some form of life. She has presence; she has will, apparently; she has knowledge. It seems more likely that she metamorphosized than that she died. When I'm awake, I can no longer hold her or see her smile or hear her laugh, but perhaps those are my limitations, not hers.

The more I learn about what she's experiencing, and the further I walk on this road of widowhood, the less I'm certain of. The thing I doubt the most is that any of us actually have a handle on reality.