Life after death and immortality

My father passed away in the recent past at the age of 87 years. He had lived a full life. In the few months leading up to his death, his quality of life had waned as his dementia condition worsened. So in many ways, my family and I had time to mentally prepare to let him go. However, there are a few things about the experience that I wasn't quite prepared for.

First, the actual finality of a person's passing is incredibly stark -- the clear missing of the person's presence (even when he wasn't mentally there) is palpable -- there's no good way to truly prepare for that. When I walked by his silent and empty room, I felt his absence shouting at me as though something was amiss or misplaced in the scene. This wasn't something I would have expected.

Second, ironically, I think about my dad every day now that he is dead. When he was alive, I admit to hardly having him in my thoughts for weeks on end as I live my busy life. Again, this is not something I would have expected. I suppose the saying that "absence makes the heart grows fonder" definitely rings true. 

Third, life goes on. In a cold and harsh way, this was something that most struck me in this experience. Everyone around me who actually knew my dad had their own busy lives to continue living without missing a single beat. 

I stand corrected: they took a few seconds to say "I'm sorry for your loss" and off they hurried on with their lives. People had planned vacations...of course we didn't expect them cancel such plans. Some of my dad's friends and relatives were too weak or elderly to come to the funeral, which we naturally understood. Some family members fell ill and were unable to come to the wake, which we certainly preferred if they stayed home to get better rather than spread their germs around and make others ill. Others had their own family members in poor health to care for, which certainly takes priority.

I felt like I was in a silent standstill while everyone around me was buzzing away outside of my bubble without a moment to pause. The painful reality is that my dad's life mattered little to others. As much as he may have touched a few people's lives, nothing was of greater priority than their own lives. The truth is that nobody ever cares about anyone more than themselves, no matter how selfless they may think they are. And it's by no fault of theirs...we all operate the same way; it's how we survive. Arguably, that's how we thrive.

Given our natural selfish ways that's needed for survival, I have often contemplated about why many of us even care about having a positive impact on others at all. I had postulated that our desire for leaving a legacy of positive impact was driven by some level of vanity (if we are completely honest with ourselves) and wanting to feel good or proud by doing good, which are selfish desires cloaked in the appearance of selfless impact. My own humble final conclusion is that we want our lives to matter. Preferably, we want to be remembered and not forgotten.

No matter how significant or lasting an impact one might have on others, it is still possible to be forgotten and not remembered. This experience brought this clearly to light for me, and it somehow saddened me most.

Our lives would matter more if the impact we made was sizable, although people might still not remember you at all. For example, if a community of people contributed lots to climate action (e.g. planting lots of trees) which makes the lives of future generations better, who exactly would be remembered? Absolutely no one.

The Egyptians are obsessed with immortality, and they have a saying:

"A person dies twice. The first time when their body dies. The second time when the last person speaks their name." 

Unless something you do is deserving of calling you out in history, it is difficult to expect anyone beyond two generations to remember you in any meaningful way, no matter how significant a positive impact you made on them. So, if you care to be remembered, do something of sizable impact (usually in both depth and breadth) that is so tremendous that you will be called out and remembered in the history books. Otherwise, be at peace with knowing that your existence mattered, even if few will remember you. And expect to have a cursory nod acknowledging your short existence on this planet while the globe continues turning like clockwork without you when you pass.