Life after Death

“Heaven Is Being A Memory To Others” exhibit at the Frye Museum in Seattle

Dario Robleto, from "Dario Robleto—Sculptor of Memory," On Being, July 24, 2014: 

So memory now takes on a moral dimension—that's why I take it so serious—because when I go, I hope someone grabs hold of me. But I have to promise I’m grabbing hold of who's gone before. And I love that memory binds us in that way. And, of course, those lines get severed all the time. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed when I think of how many people have ever been on this planet and the actual tiny, tiny fraction of them that are actually remembered to this day. Nobody remembers, even, two, three generations down the road, it's easy to start forgetting. And so memory has a spiritual dimension in that way to me.

Like the title of a piece called “Heaven Is Being a Memory to Others.” Like my grandmother who I was deeply close to. I remember her, deeply, every day. And when I go, probably no one's going to remember her in that way again. So, for the next few decades her memory is still in a sense, life after death. This is in a sense what I think memory can do on the planet. But it's going to taper off at some point, with her in particular. And many of our family members. So I just like knowing I'm going to hold on, I'm going to grasp, pull hard into the last moment. I like that art can do that. So, and I think it should. It should do that.

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See also: "If You Remember, I'll Remember" by Dario Robleto