Winter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Moon of the Winter Solstice<\/p>\n
The oldest cousin on my mother’s side died on Christmas Eve.\u00a0 Isaac, Ike, Jones always had a special place in the family as the first child of my mom’s five siblings.\u00a0\u00a0 The last of mom’s siblings, my Aunt Roberta, died several years ago and we cousins became the older generation.\u00a0 Now, for the first time, death has invaded our numbers.<\/p>\n
Ike’s death was, in many ways, a blessing.\u00a0 A victim of a nasty spinal condition that left his head permanently inclined forward, Ike suffered a bad fall in March and never really recovered.\u00a0 In the end his lungs gave out.\u00a0 We weren’t close, perhaps he was the most distant of all the cousins, but he’s still family, part of us and now part of our memories.<\/p>\n
No one really knows what death, the most shrouded ancientrail is like.\u00a0 Does life just wink out with the last breath, the last heartbeat, the last brainwave?\u00a0 Jews believe the spirit stays around the body for a few days, thus the careful and personal treatment a corpse receives in traditional Jewish practice.\u00a0 My friend, Gyatsho, believed that after 49 days his soul got a new incarnation based on karma and the attitude near death.\u00a0 Many people in the obituaries believe the dead meet Jesus, or go to heaven, or greet family and friends who died before them.<\/p>\n
You never see it in the obituaries but some believe in a place of eternal punishment, the last fork on the ancientrail leading to hell.<\/p>\n
I have no idea what happens after death though the most likely thing to me is extinction.\u00a0 We simply become no more as a Self, eventually dispersing our elements back to the universe from which they came.<\/p>\n
The Greeks, it seems to me, had the most cogent idea; that is, we live in our deeds, our family, our legacy.\u00a0 Even so, for most of us, the legacy will not amount to much, perhaps a generation’s remembrance at Thanksgiving meals, family reunions.\u00a0 Then, we’ll become one of those sepia photos\u00a0 a later generation will pick up and say, “Who was this?”<\/p>\n
Or, perhaps not.\u00a0 It’s possible that the internet has become an engine of immortality, allowing our words, pictures, even our consumer habits to live on, perhaps in the cloud?\u00a0 In this case perhaps my great-grandchild will access Ancientrails much as you do, reading of one life, at least the bits and pieces that end up on a page or in photographs.\u00a0 What might we call this?\u00a0 ByteLife.\u00a0 CyberMemory.\u00a0 Life in the Cloud.\u00a0 SiliconeForever. (no, wait, that’s those breast implants.)\u00a0 Life According to Electricity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Winter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Moon of the Winter Solstice The oldest cousin on my mother’s side died on Christmas Eve.\u00a0 Isaac, Ike, Jones always had a special place in the family as the first child of my mom’s five siblings.\u00a0\u00a0 The last of mom’s siblings, my Aunt Roberta, died several years ago and we cousins became the … Continue reading Good-Bye, Ike<\/span>