[ExI] When your mother died...

[Stuart LaForge]

Quoting John Grigg:


> My mother died a week ago, and I am grieving. And so If I may ask, how did
> those of you who have lost your mothers deal with it?

My condolences, John. I am sorry for your loss. My mother died when I  
was 11. I turned to drugs and alcohol at an early age because of it.  
Fortunately, I had other loving family and friends pull me back from  
the brink of self-destruction and I was able to finish school and go  
on to college. If Einstein was right, then your mom is still there,  
alive in your past. There are worlds upon worlds where the light of  
her birth has yet to reach. If Everett was right, then there are  
worlds where she is yet to be born. Worlds where she yet lives. Worlds  
where she outlives you and is even more grieved then you are now.

Funny that of all the bioethicists and apologists for death that I  
have read over the years, the best justification for death I have ever  
heard came from none other than Dracula played by Claes Bang, who in  
the TV miniseries "Dracula" said, "Dying gives you size. It's the  
mountaintop from which your whole life is at last visible, from  
beginning to end. Death completes you."

Something about the simple 4-dimensional geometry of that statement  
resonates with me.

Best Wishes,

Stuart LaForge