Though you've been here on Earth for much of my life (I suspect), you didn't exist until a few months ago. And now, although I've never actually seen your face or spoken to you in person, you are a steady flame, flickering well beyond the curvature of this planet we both travel and seek to understand, a source of light and warmth that enlarges the world a bit and makes it seem noticeably friendlier. How such a thing can be is beyond me. That it is, delights me. Your story, its calm, wise telling is a gift, a portal through thousands of miles of stone and darkness that allows eyes on this side of our shared planet to see, feel, understand... moments we were never present to, fleeting architects of the person you became. The glow of your very intentional light helps delineate the curved horizon to my east. I'm less apprehensive about the dark. Thank you.
Dearest David, thank you so much for reading, and for your beautiful words. It’s such a privilege to be traveling and seeking to understand this planet, this life, alongside you--while 5,000 or so miles apart. That we can offer each other warmth and light at such a distance is nothing short of miraculous, and that you feel less apprehensive about the dark is truly a gift. Your particular way of attending to this extraordinary world fuels me with ever more love for it, and so I thank you.
Omg dearst Chloe...thanks so much for this beautiful post...I love that you pointed the obvious without judgment! I need to learn that. Holding space for everyone who suffers one way or another starting with ourselves. And a prayer for you and your mom! From earth we come to earth we shall return.
Kabir, thank you so much for your beautiful comment. I admit, I went into the article expecting to be rolling my eyes at ‘the tech dude who wants to live forever’, but I found myself seeing only a terrified child, desperate for some control, or certainty. And I related. So I prayed for him. Thank you for your prayers, dear Kabir! 💗
Chloe, I was just about to shut down for the night and head to bed and then saw this pop up, so this comment is like a swift, gliding through the air of time and winging its way here before I continue to the night's realm.
I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm not sure if you've mentioned those details before about your mother. You were so young. I'm so sorry.
I think it's a lovely notion that there is a descendent line of magpies that keep vigil over churchyards and graveyards, guarding the dead.
And wow, that man bent on eternity -- that's really not some existence I want either.
What a beautiful post, Chloe. Damn, I shall be thinking about that lonely man for a while. That seems like torture to me, depriving yourself of every joy and serendipity just to live longer. To live for what, then, if all you do is subject yourself to mechanical, lifeless procedures whose only aim is to keep you alive long enough to make it to the next procedure?
Too, I’m sorry for your loss. I’m just beginning to lose family myself, though thankfully I’m old enough to understand things in perspective; but I have to say death is taking up more and more space in my head.
Andrei, thank you so much for reading and sharing your thoughts. I think you've nailed it, what on earth is the point of unnatural longevity if said longevity will only consist of deprivation? It's interesting, though. I do think that his extreme example speaks to a far reaching dis-ease in our collective relationship to our mortality.
And thank you. I'm sorry that that's starting to happen for you, it's always complex, at any age. It sounds like there's an invitation, there, with it taking up more and more space...
Andrei, we all go through our ‘apprenticeship in death’ except for those souls who die tragically young themselves, before they’ve had time to be bereaved. It takes practice. The second half of life goes easier (and harder) with that apprenticeship.
Such wise words, Michelle. I suppose I’m young enough still that the surprise is normal. I’ll get used to it eventually. I can say that the third death so far (an aunt) has felt decidedly more ordinary than the first (my primary school teacher). I actually wrote a post about her, my teacher, as one of the first posts on my Substack. I suppose it was my way to deal with the absolute shock of her passing.
A death, even an expected one, can still shock us no matter how old we are. I’m sorry for your loss. Perhaps what surprised you the most is how much you cared, still?
Yeah, I’m sure that was part of it! She meant a lot to me. I think my connection to her was stronger than most of my peers’, that we were kindred spirits of a sort.
Such losses help us to learn not to put off seeing people we love out of busy-ness or embarrassment or fear of showing our love or all the other feelings that get in the way. Virginia Woolf wrote, in The Waves, “These are the things which will wake us, crying in the night:I would not go to Hampton Court with him that day.”
I found your reflections on your early memories very evocative. Childhood memories seem to have an added layer of intensity to them, I guess it has something to do with them being connected to a time when we were so small and everything was so scary and new.
As for the immortalist, I think you summed it up perfectly - “What a strange way to spend eternity”.
Michael, thank you. I always love to hear your thoughts. You’re right, all childhood memories seem to come with some level of intensity. I wonder if that’s a universal experience?
Bless the immortalist and his misguided efforts. Thank you so much for reading.
I feel sorry for the immortalist, too. I sense so much fear beneath his efforts. As if not dying is the same as being alive. Also, isn't knowing life ends what makes it so precious?
Your memories here are so tender and beautiful. Thank you for sharing, Chloe ❤️
I totally agree, Al. It was actually quite sad to see. I thoroughly believe that entering into relationship with the reality of our mortality is one of the most powerful ways of coming to inhabit our naturally deep love of life.
Thank you so much for reading, Al. I so appreciate you being here ❤️
Oh, might I suggest checking out the Netflix show, Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones. While we learn that the simple longevity of Okanawa's centenarians is difficult to replicate now, it shows how we could, if we wanted to. The oldsters are incredible, strong and healthy and very social. As others have said, what is the point of living forever if you are just subsisting and not sharing the wonder of life?
I saw bullfinches outside the window of my dad's hospice room, and I remember thinking.....wow I've never actually seen them in the wild, only briefly at work and even then it's brief as they don't tend to do well at all once in captivity. I have a picture on my wall (you'll have seen it) of bullfinches and it's one of my mum's favourites.....so looking back (I've only just pieced it together writing this) it seems very fitting. What with that and the robin singing his song at 3:25am as we left the hospice after dad had passed.....there's my own little death and birds right there ❤️
It’s actually amazing how often people have little interactions with Birds around Death and dying. And how often they show up around hospices. You’ll have to show me the Bullfinch picture. Bless the little Robins giving you and your Dad a song in the middle of the night. Thank you for the Death & Birds, my love ♥️
Thank you. The story of the wealthy man begets many thoughts of others who, while not quite as extreme, will spend much of their remaining time being just as selfish. Sad.
Reading about your mother's crystals underneath her pillows reminded me of my own boys meditating with me. I have about 30 or so and they each got to choose their favorite ones and I would tell them the power of the stones, often times just creating stories if what they needed to hear in that moment. They were so young. But I think, that they thought, just like I did, that the power lies in the ritual. And that when you've done that ritual and woken up to see another day, your belief in that ritual only grows. My boys knew why I was meditating with my crystals, and I cherish the memory of their belief that their active belief and participation in this ritual was their part in doing something to help me. The illusion of control.
And the immortalist with his rituals does seem peculiar, but there is something so comforting about ritual and the illusion of control especially when nothing else matters. Without knowing the full story, I suspect he is just bored and curious to see if it will actually work. He has probably done everything he has wanted to do and being in the tech world, I find his living is no different from people who spend all their time on tech and not truly living either. This just presents itself differently. I wish him luck, and peace and comfort for whatever it is he is trying to hold on to.
How unfortunate it is to lose a mother at such a tender age, for you to both miss out on precious milestones. I'm sorry for your loss. It must feel like an emptiness that will never fill.
What a great take on the dude wanting to live forever but choosing a lifestyle that doesn't sound like much of a life anyway. I am laughing and maybe even feeling a little more OK about the whole death thing.
Thank you for your words, Chloe. Beautiful, brave, vulnerable, ordinary, extraordinary. They help me to explore the darkness I avoid. So I'm grateful for this.
That last sentence, though - because you're right, one imagines that the efforts to stay alive become more involved, not less, as you keep going on and on and on... Who was just saying - think of death five times a day, and you'll be happier... ::)) Doesn't seem to be working for the immortalist, though it does say "think of" not "be terrified by..."
Honestly, it just sounds so arduous--you’d think he’d die of boredom. And yes! Good point. But you’re right, I think the Bhutanese were going more for ‘think about your inevitable, unavoidable Death five times a day’ as opposed to ‘think obsessively about how you might avoid Death’!!
Oh Chloe, what an extraordinary moment for your 3 year old self to capture and hold. I am imagining her anguish in that moment, looking down at your exquisite tiny self, trying to understand that she will be leaving you. One can wonder how being with her in hospice then must have configured your future. It feels like this entire memory is held in a glimmering crystal ball.
I have wanted to ask you what has happened to the roses at your Mother’s grave?
Curiously, my first memories are also at 3. I have earlier sensibilities, no images, like remembering the mist of feelings.
It’s interesting, it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I shared that memory of the crystals and the patio with my brother and he explained that it would have been at the hospice. I suppose there’s a wealth of memories, available and otherwise, which make up some kind of driving factor in all of us. I believe 3 is typically the age at which we begin to form recallable memories, and everything prior is less accessible in the way that we typically experience memory, as you’ve found.
The rose is doing well, it made a remarkable recovery, thankfully. We had it out with the vicar, at my mothers graveside. She spent the entirety of our meeting standing on the grave of the person buried next to my mother, which I think tells you everything you need to know about her. As you can probably imagine, it got a little heated; David was after blood. But we said everything that we needed to, and probably exorcised some demons, too…
I had a visceral reaction to the vicar standing on the gravesite, not only indifferent but even worse, unconscious. It’s a perfect metaphor for my disturbing experience of the church since I was a small child.
And, I feel real relief and pleasure to know that your Mother’s rose is once again thriving and beautiful.
Love to you, Chloe. Looking forward to the next brilliant fly by of D and B.
Though you've been here on Earth for much of my life (I suspect), you didn't exist until a few months ago. And now, although I've never actually seen your face or spoken to you in person, you are a steady flame, flickering well beyond the curvature of this planet we both travel and seek to understand, a source of light and warmth that enlarges the world a bit and makes it seem noticeably friendlier. How such a thing can be is beyond me. That it is, delights me. Your story, its calm, wise telling is a gift, a portal through thousands of miles of stone and darkness that allows eyes on this side of our shared planet to see, feel, understand... moments we were never present to, fleeting architects of the person you became. The glow of your very intentional light helps delineate the curved horizon to my east. I'm less apprehensive about the dark. Thank you.
Dearest David, thank you so much for reading, and for your beautiful words. It’s such a privilege to be traveling and seeking to understand this planet, this life, alongside you--while 5,000 or so miles apart. That we can offer each other warmth and light at such a distance is nothing short of miraculous, and that you feel less apprehensive about the dark is truly a gift. Your particular way of attending to this extraordinary world fuels me with ever more love for it, and so I thank you.
Beautiful.
"What a strange way to spend eternity"
Omg dearst Chloe...thanks so much for this beautiful post...I love that you pointed the obvious without judgment! I need to learn that. Holding space for everyone who suffers one way or another starting with ourselves. And a prayer for you and your mom! From earth we come to earth we shall return.
Kabir, thank you so much for your beautiful comment. I admit, I went into the article expecting to be rolling my eyes at ‘the tech dude who wants to live forever’, but I found myself seeing only a terrified child, desperate for some control, or certainty. And I related. So I prayed for him. Thank you for your prayers, dear Kabir! 💗
Chloe, I was just about to shut down for the night and head to bed and then saw this pop up, so this comment is like a swift, gliding through the air of time and winging its way here before I continue to the night's realm.
I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm not sure if you've mentioned those details before about your mother. You were so young. I'm so sorry.
I think it's a lovely notion that there is a descendent line of magpies that keep vigil over churchyards and graveyards, guarding the dead.
And wow, that man bent on eternity -- that's really not some existence I want either.
Nathan, I’m so glad it caught you in time! Thank you for the gift of your Swift, and your sympathies. I do so hope the Magpies are related.
Wild isn’t it, restricting your life so much in an effort to never have it end, quite the pathology…
What a beautiful post, Chloe. Damn, I shall be thinking about that lonely man for a while. That seems like torture to me, depriving yourself of every joy and serendipity just to live longer. To live for what, then, if all you do is subject yourself to mechanical, lifeless procedures whose only aim is to keep you alive long enough to make it to the next procedure?
Too, I’m sorry for your loss. I’m just beginning to lose family myself, though thankfully I’m old enough to understand things in perspective; but I have to say death is taking up more and more space in my head.
Andrei, thank you so much for reading and sharing your thoughts. I think you've nailed it, what on earth is the point of unnatural longevity if said longevity will only consist of deprivation? It's interesting, though. I do think that his extreme example speaks to a far reaching dis-ease in our collective relationship to our mortality.
And thank you. I'm sorry that that's starting to happen for you, it's always complex, at any age. It sounds like there's an invitation, there, with it taking up more and more space...
Andrei, we all go through our ‘apprenticeship in death’ except for those souls who die tragically young themselves, before they’ve had time to be bereaved. It takes practice. The second half of life goes easier (and harder) with that apprenticeship.
Such wise words, Michelle. I suppose I’m young enough still that the surprise is normal. I’ll get used to it eventually. I can say that the third death so far (an aunt) has felt decidedly more ordinary than the first (my primary school teacher). I actually wrote a post about her, my teacher, as one of the first posts on my Substack. I suppose it was my way to deal with the absolute shock of her passing.
A death, even an expected one, can still shock us no matter how old we are. I’m sorry for your loss. Perhaps what surprised you the most is how much you cared, still?
Yeah, I’m sure that was part of it! She meant a lot to me. I think my connection to her was stronger than most of my peers’, that we were kindred spirits of a sort.
Such losses help us to learn not to put off seeing people we love out of busy-ness or embarrassment or fear of showing our love or all the other feelings that get in the way. Virginia Woolf wrote, in The Waves, “These are the things which will wake us, crying in the night:I would not go to Hampton Court with him that day.”
Beautiful piece Chloe.
I found your reflections on your early memories very evocative. Childhood memories seem to have an added layer of intensity to them, I guess it has something to do with them being connected to a time when we were so small and everything was so scary and new.
As for the immortalist, I think you summed it up perfectly - “What a strange way to spend eternity”.
Thanks Chloe.
Michael, thank you. I always love to hear your thoughts. You’re right, all childhood memories seem to come with some level of intensity. I wonder if that’s a universal experience?
Bless the immortalist and his misguided efforts. Thank you so much for reading.
I'm sorry for your loss.
I'm sorry too for the immortal one. Life and death are inseparable. It seems that in denying himself death, he has denied himself life.
Thank you so much, John. And so brilliantly put, regarding the immortalists denials.
I feel sorry for the immortalist, too. I sense so much fear beneath his efforts. As if not dying is the same as being alive. Also, isn't knowing life ends what makes it so precious?
Your memories here are so tender and beautiful. Thank you for sharing, Chloe ❤️
I totally agree, Al. It was actually quite sad to see. I thoroughly believe that entering into relationship with the reality of our mortality is one of the most powerful ways of coming to inhabit our naturally deep love of life.
Thank you so much for reading, Al. I so appreciate you being here ❤️
Oh, might I suggest checking out the Netflix show, Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones. While we learn that the simple longevity of Okanawa's centenarians is difficult to replicate now, it shows how we could, if we wanted to. The oldsters are incredible, strong and healthy and very social. As others have said, what is the point of living forever if you are just subsisting and not sharing the wonder of life?
I saw bullfinches outside the window of my dad's hospice room, and I remember thinking.....wow I've never actually seen them in the wild, only briefly at work and even then it's brief as they don't tend to do well at all once in captivity. I have a picture on my wall (you'll have seen it) of bullfinches and it's one of my mum's favourites.....so looking back (I've only just pieced it together writing this) it seems very fitting. What with that and the robin singing his song at 3:25am as we left the hospice after dad had passed.....there's my own little death and birds right there ❤️
It’s actually amazing how often people have little interactions with Birds around Death and dying. And how often they show up around hospices. You’ll have to show me the Bullfinch picture. Bless the little Robins giving you and your Dad a song in the middle of the night. Thank you for the Death & Birds, my love ♥️
Thank you. The story of the wealthy man begets many thoughts of others who, while not quite as extreme, will spend much of their remaining time being just as selfish. Sad.
Yes, Robert. My thoughts exactly. I appreciate you reading.
Reading about your mother's crystals underneath her pillows reminded me of my own boys meditating with me. I have about 30 or so and they each got to choose their favorite ones and I would tell them the power of the stones, often times just creating stories if what they needed to hear in that moment. They were so young. But I think, that they thought, just like I did, that the power lies in the ritual. And that when you've done that ritual and woken up to see another day, your belief in that ritual only grows. My boys knew why I was meditating with my crystals, and I cherish the memory of their belief that their active belief and participation in this ritual was their part in doing something to help me. The illusion of control.
And the immortalist with his rituals does seem peculiar, but there is something so comforting about ritual and the illusion of control especially when nothing else matters. Without knowing the full story, I suspect he is just bored and curious to see if it will actually work. He has probably done everything he has wanted to do and being in the tech world, I find his living is no different from people who spend all their time on tech and not truly living either. This just presents itself differently. I wish him luck, and peace and comfort for whatever it is he is trying to hold on to.
That’s a mighty kind wish, Danette. And one I’ll join you in.
How unfortunate it is to lose a mother at such a tender age, for you to both miss out on precious milestones. I'm sorry for your loss. It must feel like an emptiness that will never fill.
Thank you, Nadia. That’s pretty much exactly how it feels, but I’m very much at peace with the feeling, now, thankfully. 🌸
You're so strong and courageous. <3
What a great take on the dude wanting to live forever but choosing a lifestyle that doesn't sound like much of a life anyway. I am laughing and maybe even feeling a little more OK about the whole death thing.
Then my work here is done!! Thank you, Diane :)
Thank you for your words, Chloe. Beautiful, brave, vulnerable, ordinary, extraordinary. They help me to explore the darkness I avoid. So I'm grateful for this.
What a gorgeous audio reading, as well.
Thank you so much, Janelle. That means an awful lot, coming from you. Hurrah for darkness explorations!
That last sentence, though - because you're right, one imagines that the efforts to stay alive become more involved, not less, as you keep going on and on and on... Who was just saying - think of death five times a day, and you'll be happier... ::)) Doesn't seem to be working for the immortalist, though it does say "think of" not "be terrified by..."
Honestly, it just sounds so arduous--you’d think he’d die of boredom. And yes! Good point. But you’re right, I think the Bhutanese were going more for ‘think about your inevitable, unavoidable Death five times a day’ as opposed to ‘think obsessively about how you might avoid Death’!!
Oh Chloe, what an extraordinary moment for your 3 year old self to capture and hold. I am imagining her anguish in that moment, looking down at your exquisite tiny self, trying to understand that she will be leaving you. One can wonder how being with her in hospice then must have configured your future. It feels like this entire memory is held in a glimmering crystal ball.
I have wanted to ask you what has happened to the roses at your Mother’s grave?
Curiously, my first memories are also at 3. I have earlier sensibilities, no images, like remembering the mist of feelings.
Sending you love.
Rosi
It’s interesting, it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I shared that memory of the crystals and the patio with my brother and he explained that it would have been at the hospice. I suppose there’s a wealth of memories, available and otherwise, which make up some kind of driving factor in all of us. I believe 3 is typically the age at which we begin to form recallable memories, and everything prior is less accessible in the way that we typically experience memory, as you’ve found.
The rose is doing well, it made a remarkable recovery, thankfully. We had it out with the vicar, at my mothers graveside. She spent the entirety of our meeting standing on the grave of the person buried next to my mother, which I think tells you everything you need to know about her. As you can probably imagine, it got a little heated; David was after blood. But we said everything that we needed to, and probably exorcised some demons, too…
Love to you, Rosi
I had a visceral reaction to the vicar standing on the gravesite, not only indifferent but even worse, unconscious. It’s a perfect metaphor for my disturbing experience of the church since I was a small child.
And, I feel real relief and pleasure to know that your Mother’s rose is once again thriving and beautiful.
Love to you, Chloe. Looking forward to the next brilliant fly by of D and B.