I have reflected on and written much concerning that universal question – what happens to us when we die, most recently in my article about turning 80 years old. The question is quite fundamental, asked and answered in many ways by humans from time immemorial, forming the basis for virtually all varieties of religion, which attempt to answer the question. In fact one could argue that were it not for that question, there would be no need for religion. Really it’s very difficult to believe that our soul, our being, our spirit does not live on in some way after our physical lives come to an end. My own life has been fraught by this fundamental question and I sometimes wish for the serenity exhibited by others whose strong beliefs in their respective religions have provided satisfactory answers to this question.

And in various other articles I have offered my own theories of what happens when we die. The predominant belief I maintain, difficult though it is to accept, is that I just more or less go to sleep and sleep forever when I die. Simply, my mind, spirit, soul and being are extinguished along with my physical self. After all, since I slept for a prior eternity before I was born, why not think that death is simply sleeping for a subsequent eternity. I had no consciousness before being born and my memory, my being, only began as I matured as a child. So isn’t it reasonable to assume that the same condition could apply after death?

But lately, I’ve been questioning this idea which I’ve embraced, simply because I still can’t believe completely that my soul, my consciousness, my memory, my being, are simply extinguished in death, as I just go to sleep, induced by accident, illness or old age. There has got to be more. And certain passionate desires and convictions, voiced by various loved ones and other individuals in recent years, have caused me to consider yet another theory about life and death.

I can’t say how many times I have heard my brothers and sister saying that they miss our mother and father and can still see and hear them clearly in their minds.  And how much they wish Dad and Mom were still alive today so that they could share and enjoy their success and happiness and that of their children and grandchildren. Here in Vermont I share my wife’s similar sentiment, expressed quite often, about how much her parents, Chet and Mary Baldwin, would have loved to see our little house and all the beautiful flowers and trees now thriving on this little remnant of their huge dairy farm which thrived on this land in the 1940’s and 50’s. It is pleasant to imagine them both, along with us, enjoying the beauty of this precious little piece of Vermont from wherever their souls and beings are presently. We thrive on working hard to make our little place increasingly beautiful for not only ourselves but because we think that they too would enjoy it along with us.

So often I have heard others refer to their long passed parents with terms like – my dad would have loved this so much or – this would have made mother so happy, when experiencing or observing an important event in their lives. In fact, a notable singer-songwriter, included on a recent recording a song her father had written, a troubled and addicted man who had murdered her mother and taken his own life, as a tribute to him, thinking I am sure that it would have made him so happy.

I have written too in one article, that loved ones live in our hearts and minds until we ourselves die and can no longer conceive of them. I believe the phrase is “what’s remembered lives”. And this is certainly food for thought. So strong are these thoughts of our parents looking down upon us and our families and sharing in our successes and commiserating with our failures, that they may help form yet another idea of life and death that could motivate, comfort and sustain us until the day we die and these thoughts and memories disappear.

And that idea would be that our parents and other loved ones do in some form still exist,  somehow share our lives and do so until we die and can no longer conceive of them. That is what I would like to believe – not that there is a heaven or hell with which we and our loved ones are rewarded or punished after death, but that as long as we can keep loved ones in our hearts and minds, they will live in those thoughts and still share our lives.

So the Baxstrom grandparents, Anna and Nels, after they passed away, looked and watched from wherever they were at their daughter Ida and us, her children, until she passed away and could no longer maintain her memories of them. And the same with Conrad and Audra Friedly, that after their passing too, still observed and shared Dad’s successes and failures, along with those of us, his and Mom’s children, until Dad himself passed away, that point being when he lost his memory and self to Alzheimers disease, not when he actually physically passed away.

And one might wonder whether this idea would apply to other relationships. Certainly, if the relationships were close, grandparents would remain alive in the memories of grandchildren and would share in their lives.  In the case of me and my siblings I do not think that our relationship to either the Baxstrom or Friedly grandparents was that close, while one of my spouse’s grandparents was indeed quite close and so thrives in her memory and has shared her life.

And I do think that perhaps the memories of my parents are almost as strong in the minds of my dear sister Barbara’s older daughters Anna and Sheila, who became very close to Mom and Dad, their grandparents and to us children, their aunts and uncles, after the untimely passing of their mother. And of course I should add that just like Mom and Dad, Barbara remains very alive in my mind to this day and she is part of that configuration of loved ones that I imagine watch over me and share my life. I should mention also that two other people I cherished, my Uncle Emil and Aunt Margaret Baxstrom, with whom I lived during my senior year in high school, are often part of this constellation of loved ones who invested in my life and who are always alive in my mind.

Yes, I know this all seems fanciful and farfetched but this idea, in addition to being pleasant to consider,  does serve a valuable purpose: It inspires us strive to create a good life, not only for ourselves and our immediate loved ones, i.e. our children and grandchildren, but for this group of loved ones whom we can imagine sharing in our happiness or grief, just like they did when they were alive and we were younger. 

And when I think of applying this concept to myself and my children, few though they are, it is conceivable in this configuration as well. I would certainly like to imagine myself and my wife living on in some fashion and sharing their lives because we remain as powerful memories and strong influences in theirs even though not physically present.

So those thoughts and memories of loved ones do form a kind of extended life for them and accordingly an enriched life for us. Our parents and other precious close relatives and friends who have passed away are still keeping company with us and subtly influencing our lives as we move on inexorably toward that point when our lives end, and, with the final extinguishing of those thoughts and memories, theirs must finally end as well. “What’s remembered lives” and when ultimately extinguished or forgotten, dies.