11 ms·

My dead dad’s journal

472 points by pgcm1 5y ago

steve_adams_86 5y ago
> An addict who was self-aware, and still couldn’t pull himself out from the abyss. My experience with addicts is that they are often self aware. Their appearance and circumstance might suggest otherwise. It's very easy to relegate these people to some category of cognitive failure. Unfortunately it seems to me that addiction tends to defeat good cognition, awareness, intention, all the rest of the apparent defences – it isn't a disease of stupidity or inferiority. > It was Jekyll talking to Hyde. Bruce Banner talking to the Hulk. And, in honor of my dad I feel I must also include: It’s Data talking to Lore. I love it. That was a nice read. I like to be reminded of how messy life can be and at the same time how close death is. We're all on borrowed time. Reading about dads struggling from the perspective of their children is also a uniquely motivating thing. I hope my kids don't end up reading through my journals trying to get to know me after losing me unexpectedly.
- xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
  > Unfortunately it seems to me that addiction tends to defeat good cognition, awareness, intention, all the rest of the apparent defences – it isn't a disease of stupidity or inferiority. Sadly this is true for so many things -- depression, ADHD, extreme anxiety. And yet for the most part, society does not understand. Instead, people aren't trying hard enough, or they're not letting things make them happy, or they're lazy, or are procrastinating. If only more people realized that no amount of awareness or intelligence can overcome some of these issues without help from others -- be it friends, family, medical professionals, or strangers -- perhaps the world would be a better place.
  - thrashh 5y ago
    This is true for like everything. Watch people talk about gun control or 2fa or any topic of discourse. Everyone thinks the other side is dumb and can’t see why the other side believes the way they do no matter what. It’s a sign of lack of experience, but you also can’t experience even 1% of everything so are you just need to learn that when a lot of people are doing something that doesn’t make sense to you and it makes you think they’re dumb, it just means that you just don’t have the tools to figure out why yet. Of course, it also doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re right either.
    - wombatmobile 5y ago
      > Everyone thinks the other side is dumb and can’t see why the other side believes the way they do no matter what. That's easy to see in other people talking about other people, and difficult to see in yourself talking about other people. TFA is not really about that. TFA is about one man who exhibited two distinct personas. One was loving and kind, the other was tormented and self-destructive. He left a diary as the only way he could find to present his better self to his family, free from the interference of the destructive aspects of his persona/s. It is tempting to wonder which persona is the "real" one, which leads to attempts to resolve or cure or purify the self, either by ones self or by others. But that assumes there is such a thing as a "real" self. That's a common paradigm in western cultures, particularly Hollywood films, and less common in other parts of the world, particularly easter cultures. What if the self is not singular, but a fluid network of identities? https://aeon.co/essays/the-self-is-not-singular-but-a-fluid-network-of-identities https://aeon.co/essays/the-self-is-not-singular-but-a-fluid-...
      - tnzm 5y ago
        My two cents: Identity is a socially constructed fiction that we are bound to via continuous environmental reinforcement. We impose identities on each other as a fundamental precept of social reality. It's somewhere in the middle of our existential stack, biochemistry being the "hardware" and what one does with one's life the being the "apps". Just like migrating a computer from one operating system to a vastly different one means you won't be able to run the same apps out of the box, changing our idea of the "self" would make a lot of the things we currently do become meaningless, and we would have to explicitly put some effort into giving them new meaning if we wanna keep them (most meaning is inherited). Just like some people are enthusiastic about fine tuning their Unix box or their muscle car, some try to remedy issues that they find in their identities and meanings. (Which is highly undesirable to the status quo, and a major purpose of all the political noise in the media is to crowd out thinking that may lead to this sort of activity.) Since the self is self-reinforcing, reforms to our model of identity generally come from outside our rational awareness. (See e.g. Jungian "shadow self".) Historically, art and culture, being collective phenomena, have acted as such a reservoir of "awareness transcending the self". Nowadays we also have behavioral targeting - social network algorithms can be scarily accurate at precipitating self-reflection. And unlike culture, which is local, participatory, and slow, big data is global, opaque, and fast. (Just the other day, I laughed my ass off when I realized that a popular recommender algo had deduced my life situation from my "completely random" "fuck the algo" actions on the platform, and started promoting exactly the kind of content that would push my buttons, even though all I ever post on that platform is complete and utter nonsense. We humans are predictable - even from metadata if the scale is large enough.) It is quite easy to become trapped in the self: remain high-functioning while acting out a role that you feel to be fundamentally contradictory with some sort of "more real, inner self" that you identify with more intentionally. In the general case, we don't have the cognitive tools to become aware that both selves are equally fictitious. This desperate and uninformed struggle towards a "true self" can manifest as different compensatory drives and mechanisms that can override our (self-circumscribed) willpower and make us destructive of self and others. Worse, in many environments, a certain degree of destructiveness is necessary for others to legitimize you as a self in the first place! Shout out to everyone who never wanted anything to do with any of that but are now stuck being some random person they barely recognize. And a dose of your preferred self-medication, on the house. Stay strong friends, Skynet is coming to free us all. Any day now
  - LocalH 5y ago
    Such compassion isn't compatible with the capitalist ways that most of the Western world has adopted.
    - steve_adams_86 5y ago
      Opinion: It absolutely is. Compassion uplifts many of us who could otherwise be a burden on those around us. It helps the most productive avoid burn out. It spreads responsibility by enabling more people, and not relying solely on those who thrive with less support. Compassion is the long view as far as I can tell. We may come to believe there’s an incompatibility, but I don’t believe it’s innate within capitalism itself. I think it’s more so a byproduct of how it has been implemented so far combined with deep cultural hang ups. There’s no reason I can see that would make capitalism and compassion exclusive of each other. I believe addiction and a lack of compassion largely come down to culture. Rejection and condemnation of psychological issues likely occurred long before financial systems influenced our decisions so strongly.
      - germinalphrase 5y ago
        I recently listened to a journalist discuss her work on corruption. She made this point: the prevalence of corruption rises in cultures that view monetary wealth as the only or primary mark of social status. She called it the Midas Disease as this pursuit is - at a certain point - meaningless (is another hundred million dollars when you already have 100 billion?), and yet - the effects of this pursuit have significant downstream effects on the fair application of justice, sustainable environmental policy, professional administration of governmental functions, etc. Edit: Sarah Chayes
        dnissley 5y ago
        I thought it was well known that corruption is a bigger problem in developing nations which are likely to be considerably less capitalistic than first world nations?
        5y ago
  - yann2 5y ago
    >Addiction tends to defeat cognition, awareness... >Unfortunately society does not understand.. Both statements are misleading. The issue is not what the addict or society understands. Anyone can understand how chess or baseball works, but to be a good player is another matter entirely.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  > Unfortunately it seems to me that addiction tends to defeat good cognition, awareness, intention, all the rest of the apparent defences In those who become addicted, sure. But that's a small minority. For most of us, something, whether it's good cognition, awareness, intention, or something else, apparently does defeat addiction.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ssfrr 5y ago
    Most people don’t killed by bears. It’s not because they are somehow strong enough to beat a bear in a fight, it’s because they don’t get attacked by bears.
  - steve_adams_86 5y ago
    I’m fairly sure this is a logical fallacy. Addiction is so prevalent among people who are far more intelligent, capable, and strong than I am. There’s nothing special about me other than a fortunate environment and genetics as far as I’m concerned. Pretty much every addict I’ve spoken to about their addiction and personal matters (not a small number) has had terrible experiences in life. It’s almost guaranteed. Weird trauma, or a lack of something critical in early life. The brain begins to seek, it self medicates, it soothes, the feedback loop becomes unbearable. Like an itch you need to scratch, but each scratch ruins your life a little more. Even after you stop using, the itch is typically still there. Good luck not scratching it. It might feel good to tell yourself us non-addicts are somehow superior, but I prefer to warn myself that I’m certainly not. If anything I admire a lot of these people for holding on. My life is comparatively effortless yet I still have a hard time with plenty. We’re on easy mode if you ask me (which I know, you didn’t). Bottom line, addiction is arguably like a disease and you (fortunately) don’t have it.
    - girvo 5y ago
      I was a heroin addict from 16 years old through to my mid 20s. I had pretty rough childhood trauma, just to add to your own anecdotes. Crippling depression too. I’m doing much better these days :) suboxone initially saved my life, then Buvidal injection made sure I’m here to stay.
mrpf1ster 5y ago
What a beautiful memoir, I'm glad the journal could provide the author such closure.
accidentalrebel 5y ago
I have been writing a journal on-and-off for more than 5 years already. My purpose is similar, which is to only have it available to my loved ones after I die. I am hoping that whatever lessons I couldn't impart to them while I was alive, they could get from my writings. I've also revealed to them that my journal exists so that they would know what to do when the time comes. My journal is digital and it's spread across my computer, my phone, and on the cloud. I am planning to write a script to collect everything into one location to make it easier to go through it. I also plan to add a note to each family member, just in case they could not (or do not want to) read through the whole thing. I just hope I would still have the time to do all of this.
- bombcar 5y ago
  They die? Or you die?
  - accidentalrebel 5y ago
    Oh. Thank you for pointing that out. Edited.
- h0p3 5y ago
  Perhaps it is worth [[sharing|https://philosopher.life/#Sharing https://philosopher.life/#Sharing]] with them now rather than later. I am [[grateful|https://philosopher.life/#Gratitude https://philosopher.life/#Gratitude]] that I have the opportunity. You might even keep a public side and private one separately.
topherjaynes 5y ago
Thanks for this article and hit me really hard. My mom passed away unexpectedly a few weeks ago. She was just starting to enjoy retirement and time being a grandmom. Her journals were note books and mostly documents of what she had done in two year of retirement and things to do with the boys. It's so hard to look at the plans of things to come and what she was thinking of... like the planning of my oldest son's 9 3/4 birthday in a year because he's so in to Harry Potter. It's a unique treasure to see the inner workings of her mind and something I wish everyone got to experience after a parents passing. We've left the stack of them out at her house so the rest of my siblings can go through them as the pass through.
- sircastor 5y ago
  Very sorry to hear of your loss. Losing a parent is tremendously difficult. I hope you and your family are doing alright in a difficult time.
HeyZuess 5y ago
I do something similar to this for my kids, they each have an email address which I send some pictures and/or message to every day. On my passing they will get the details to access the accounts. I thought it was important to leave them something that they can reflect on, memories, thoughts, reasons, and an understanding of me in some ways and how they impacted on my life.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  Not sure what your system is, but if you have one, make sure your email provider isn't the kind that deletes addresses if no one has logged in in a year or two.
  - amatecha 5y ago
    Yeah, I've already lost so much stuff due to this happening to a couple email accounts over the years. Or, I mean, entire services just shut down (Geocities, Yahoo Groups, etc.)
  - HeyZuess 5y ago
    Thanks, good tip. I am using gmail and occasionally log into the accounts to ensure the emails are being received, and there are not problems with the account.
    - exciteabletom 5y ago
      You should forward every email to an account on a different provider as well. For redundancy
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
    Gmail does this too.
- nemo1618 5y ago
  You might also enjoy FutureMe: https://www.futureme.org https://www.futureme.org You can send emails 10 years into the future! :)
m0zg 5y ago
I feel like I could only really understand my parents when I became a parent myself. All the fucked up stuff they did to themselves and each other (and sometimes to me), all the life lessons they tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to teach me - I'm doing some version of it, and it now makes more sense since I'm now where they were back then. I suspect it'll only fully make sense once I become a grandparent.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  Unrequested advice: I try to explain to my kids the underlying life lesson that <my behaviour | their punishment> is trying to teach them. Don't leave it in a journal, leave it in their memories. Not knowing how old your kids are, but they understand and can take on advice at an earlier age than you might expect. They may have tantrums about it, sure, but your explanations will stick with them, and consolidate the more explanations you give them. Expecting kids to have common sense about cause and effect ("well, what did you think would happen?") is just so stupid in hindsight - they don't know because they haven't experienced anything with which to compare yet. I still occasionally make this mistake about my own expectations of their experience. I think helping your kids to understand your reasons will give them a view into the real world in advance of having to enter it. Fore-warned is fore-armed. One of the best things that's happened for my kids is having a cousin with learning difficulties. We (myself and my better half) have had to explain in great detail how their cousin's behaviour is as a result of the various defence mechanisms that are symptomatic of their learning difficulties and that 'not understanding' something as quickly as everyone else around you inevitably leads to frustration and anger and lashing out. It's not personal, it's their way of dealing with things, and as (generally) intelligent people, we need to have patience for that, whilst at the same time doing what we can to not spark her off, but also not accepting her behaviour if and when she does ignite. We've had these conversations with the kids many, many times over the course of 7+ years, so it's not a one-shot deal by any means, but it has most certainly sunk in. Parenting is ad-nauseum repeated effort, very slowly ratcheting up the level of detail of the world around them to match their level of growth and understanding. Don't underestimate what they're actually able to understand. (I feel very strongly about this, potentially the most important topic in the world. They'll be running it one day, sow the right seeds.)
Sophistifunk 5y ago
I found something akin to this after dad died, while going through some old floppies looking for a demo my friends had made and released and then lost. I don't really remember what it said, but I remember I wished I hadn't read it. I have those files somewhere, I protect them, back them up, and move them dutifully when I migrate to a new box, but I never ever read through them. So, YMMV.
Ozzie_osman 5y ago
Wow. My dad's not an addict but.. I'm off to call him and let him know how much I love and appreciate what he's done for me and my siblings.
- tartoran 5y ago
  We often take that for ganted and when death comes unexpectedly we regret for not saying anything.
birdyrooster 5y ago
"One of us smoked a cigarette." I love the solidarity of this phrase. It's careful and subtly loving.
- sengstrom 5y ago
  the little things matter
mberning 5y ago
I never knew what dying meant until I saw my old man go
dzink 5y ago
I run a family wishlist site called DreamList (https://www.dreamlist.com https://www.dreamlist.com) and it is frequented by grandparents. Since 2020 we started working on a family journal to build into the site to make sure families are reminded to jot down and preserve their stories and potentially to give them to loved ones on special occasions. Some insights and lessons are more valuable than any material gift and you don’t have to wait till a terminal event to share them.
johnwheeler 5y ago
Especially powerful for me was > My dad didn’t have a tidy ending. I won’t. And neither will you. Our lives will not be a slow positive upward slope before we die in our sleep surrounded by our loved ones.
- wsc981 5y ago
  Not exactly the same, but that quote reminded me of quote from the Donnie Darko movie: “everyone dies alone” [0]. I believe this is very much true. —— [0]: https://youtu.be/8j1IMBM-QyE https://youtu.be/8j1IMBM-QyE
  - owlninja 5y ago
    In a similar vein this Jason Isbell lyric always sticks with me > There's one thing that's real clear to me: No one dies with dignity
    - schrijver 5y ago
      Some absolutely do. Of course they are sad, and afraid, but they’re lucid about what’s happening. They make their affairs in order and they say their goodbyes. And they die with dignity. I’ve seen it up close, and it’s impressive. For the longest time I thought it wasn’t possible. I’d read Simone de Beauvoir’s Une mort très douce, where she chronicles her mother’s death, and the conclusion is more or less that even with a live well fulfilled we all end up raging against the dying of the light (a reference to Dylan Thomas). It sounded very reasonable to me. But now I know it does not have to be like that.
  - techer 5y ago
    You die with yourself. You are never alone…
  - bspammer 5y ago
    My granddad died surrounded by his loved ones, pretty peacefully really (he was jacked up on morphine). I know you mean alone in a kind of existential way, but at the end of the day I've learned that if you have that depressing outlook on things, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy of misery.
matthewhartmans 5y ago
It was a really beautiful read and some real teary moments. Thank you for sharing man.
pepoluan 5y ago
That was a beautiful story. I'm teary eyed reading that. I wish my mom & dad kept a journal, but they hadn't, and now they live only in me & my brother's memories... I should start my own journal.
nceqs3 5y ago
This is an incredible post.
noduerme 5y ago
This really moved me. My dad went through brain surgery last year and his four sons converged from around the country. We all barely speak to each other. A holographic will was produced, ten loose leaf pages in impossible handwriting, the last few pages written by him right before he went into surgery while his fourth wife held the pad and guided his hand with a pen. I wish we had conducted ourselves with grace, but two of my brothers are lawyers, so we're shouting at each other in his house while he's having a full craniotomy. Luckily he survived and is back somewhat in his faculties for now, and seems cognizant that he doesn't want to leave this strife behind between his wife and his kids. But this still made me choke up because there's not much anyone can do. I think about my dad's regrets and his father's and see them repeated in myself and my brothers. None of us knows what we're really doing, do we? We're all trying our best to pretend we have some control.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  What a sad story. You could take it as a shadow of what's to come if this isn't dealt with now though, so in a way something good may come of it.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    It was a blessing and a miracle that he lived through the surgery. Not least because it gave us a frightening look at what kind of war we were about to have, and a chance to open some lines of communication. And the one thing we agreed on was that if he recovered he'd need to clarify his wishes. Which he has. None of us were prepared to have to deal with this so, yes, thankfully we won't have to go through what the author went through, not knowing or finding this journal. The hard part wasn't really about the house, or the codicils dictated by his wife (which he retracted when he regained his senses) it was that none of us could make heads or tails of his intentions, all of us were extremely distraught and coming at it from our own ideas of who our father is and what he believes, mixed with their individual motivations; and with no clarification. So yeah, by being put to the test I hope you're right that we're more prepared to deal with the future.
sharadov 5y ago
Beautifully written, and this line really struck deep "Your children are nothing more than the memories they spend with you."
prismatix 5y ago
Thank you for sharing. I read this a while back and it still hits me just as hard. My brother passed away nearly 6 years ago and left under similar circumstances to the author's father. He also left a tattered, and similarly-chaotic journal. I was really torn about reading it at first, but he was the type of person who wanted to go ahead of the pack and clear the path for others. His journal was the last way for him to do that. He was older than me and, reading it years after his death, it's shocking to see the differences between our lives at the same ages. He always seemed older and wiser, but now -- having just turned the age he was when he died -- I realize why he felt so lost and lonely. Being an adult in your mid-twenties is difficult. I have it easy, and I'm having a hard time. Throw in years of battling addiction and no college education, and you can't help but feel the entire world is against you. Losing an older sibling is a strange experience. The longer you go without them, the smaller the age gap between you becomes. Eventually, you're older than they will ever be -- I haven't reached that point yet but just thinking about it puts a lump in my throat. I've considered publishing bits and pieces of his story on a blog, or in a book, someday. Anything that could help people in his (or my) situation feel less alone. Although, I don't think it would be much help considering his story ended. Not sure why I posted this comment. There's not much substance here other than evidence of another touched soul.
- NetOpWibby 5y ago
  Still…thanks for sharing.
- raffraffraff 5y ago
  I'm now older than by big sis :( Unfortunately when she died of cancer, she was in complete denial. Right to the bitter end it was "I'll get better". She refused to write down anything, or records little videos for her newborn to have when he was older. It felt like communicating "from beyond the grave", as it were, and she just couldn't do it. It was an admission of her impending death. She just wanted to raise him and one day tell him about her fight with cancer.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  This same thing holds true for parents, especially when they die young. I'm relatively close to the age at which my dad died and I somehow find it really hard to imagine life past that point. Of course it isn't rational, but that doesn't take away that weird feeling.
reviews-chat 5y ago
This is a very interesting post.
bjarneh 5y ago
What an incredible piece of writing. If I could write like that; I'd be an author...
cryptica 5y ago
I never understood how parents could disown their children. It's some kind of social brainwashing. It makes no sense from an evolutionary perspective. By disowning your own children, you're giving an advantage to other people's children (whose parents haven't disowned them)... Some of these kids are downright rotten.
jl6 5y ago
To all those who keep a long-term journal: what’s your end-game? Trash it? Publish it? Actively gift it to your family? Passively let the family read it if they find it? If it’s an electronic journal, what steps are you taking to ensure or prevent access after you’re gone?
- aomobile 5y ago
  My journal is encrypted but I have boxes of old letters, photos of old girlfriends even, and I wonder what to do with it. Contemplating to scan all of it and then get rid of the paper version. Or maybe just put a label for the wife and kids on the boxes: „private, if I die please just get rid of it. Or look at it if you want.“ - I just realized I don’t care that much now and i certainly won’t care when I’m gone.
- developerray 5y ago
  I keep long journal, no end-game. I have mental clarity and I feel more confident when I write my thought down on paper, its a wonderful tool that works for me.
- bspammer 5y ago
  There is no end-game for me. I just do it because I enjoy it.
- bserge 5y ago
  I have a massive collection of thoughts in old OneNote files and Google Keep. I just write them down for myself. I should probably make them available to everyone somehow, I'm pretty sure many will find them interesting. At least I do, rereading the really old stuff :D
- varnaud 5y ago
  I keep my journal in a private git repository. I hope one day someone from my family will read it if I'm gone. Maybe I'll share it with someone I love if they ask. I had the fear that it could be leaked, but honestly I realized I didn't care that much if it gets public as no one will care except maybe the ones mentioned in it. I find it therapeutic to write things down. The access information is printed on a sheet of paper somewhere and I will probably just print the whole thing one day.
tbronchain 5y ago
I felt very strongly with this story - and thank you for sharing. My mother passed away at 59. She was healthy, and thought she had decades to live. Then she got sick, and thought she had years. Few months later, we had a call on our way to the hospital, she was dead. I didn't have the greatest relationship with my mother and the disease didn't allow us to do more than scratch the surface. She wasn't an open person but I know her mind was rich. She left with it and nobody will ever be able to get the full picture. Maybe that's what she wanted, but almost a year later I know something will still be missing inside me. A lot of people here are entrepreneurs and I think a common goal is to leave our trace in this world, and make our temporary stay less temporary. We tend to forget that everything is temporary and always think we have time, but really, we don't. This feeling first created within me a constant feeling of rush and stress, still present, but is evolving in a urge to focus on what is truly essential to me. I, for some strange/personal reasons struggle to write what's in my head. My thoughts are very disorganized and always feel what's on the paper doesn't reflect the original idea. If you have felt in a similar way, I am very interested in hearing stories on how you overcame this. I believe we all have a treasure to share, maybe not to the world, but to a few people to who we matter.
- stackbutterflow 5y ago
  I could have written the second half of your post. For similar reasons I feel the hurry of life. I also struggle to express my ideas clearly. That's one of the reasons I engage in online discussions, to improve my ability to share what's in my mind.
- schrijver 5y ago
  Sorry to hear of your loss. > I, for some strange/personal reasons struggle to write what's in my head. I don’t think that’s strange at all. Most of us can use language to get by through daily live, but to put to words our own thoughts in a way that other’s can read them later is really difficult. > If you have felt in a similar way, I am very interested in hearing stories on how you overcame this. I recognise this. For me writing small self-contained fragments is a good way to get started. Tweets are too small. But essays are too big. The problem with writing your own thoughts is that in your mind everything’s connected: the challenge is to cut some connections and make a bit of text that can stand on its own two feet. And then learn to enjoy the things that make text work, the rhythm, the tone, the choice of words. Like with any creative endeavour, you need to build up a muscle to do it. I think the actual platform doesn’t matter at all. It could be a paper notebook or a blogging platform. Whatever works for you. If you can write a small 300 word text every week that’s already amazing. I would just start with the first thought that comes into your mind. And not worry about the coherence between the different texts. After a year you’ll have 50 short texts and a better intuition on how to make writing work for you. If you’re interested in writing longer pieces then, you’ll also have a better feel for which subjects lend themselves to it. That’s how it works for me at least. Before I wrote my first book, I spent a long time blogging. It helped me to stop trying to connect all my thoughts together in a big scheme. I loved the freedom of writing small self-contained texts that didn’t need to relate exactly to the previous ones. It also helped me explore a variety of themes. I’m looking forward to take up blogging again, as I know I have a lot of topics I’m interested in and it’s only through writing with that variety that I can get a clearer focus for my next project. > I believe we all have a treasure to share, maybe not to the world, but to a few people to who we matter. So true. Although we might end up sharing it in other ways than written words. But I feel learning to write also helps you think and express yourself at other moments in your live.
willemojnr 5y ago
This broke my heart into so many pieces.
MrDresden 5y ago
My father was also an addict, and passed away some 11 years ago. I have fond memories with him, but never felt I knew him well. It is because of this I have kept a journal for the last decade, for my loved ones in case I would pass unexpectedly.
pelasaco 5y ago
I had a similar experience with my mom who I didn't had too much contact last years. I moved to another country and we talked less frequently that we should. She was an active writer, mostly on facebook and blog (she was blogging consistently since 2001). Now those are the media that I'm using to keep my mom image alive to my kids. She passed on January. I sent her a package for Christmas with some pictures and texts produced by me and my kids. The package came back, probably because it arrived after she was already dead. Now the package is seating near my computer untouched since weeks.
sylens 5y ago
I've tried starting to journal a few times using an app like Day One, but reading this makes me feel a physical, handwritten journal that could be left behind for family may ultimately be a better option
magpi3 5y ago
I have been a writing teacher, and sometimes the question comes out: why write? This is why you write. Not to be famous, not to be published. But so that you can leave something for the ones who loved you. So that you do not just become a fading memory. So that people knew you where here. None of my ancestors (including my Dad) kept a journal, at least one that I can get my hands on. So I know absolutely nothing about them. And that feels like a huge, huge loss.
bserge 5y ago
If anyone needs an organ donation in Europe, I can provide it if it's a match.
1MachineElf 5y ago
I wish my dad had left behind a journal.
blastro 5y ago
Thanks so much for this. I'm crying. Hits me very hard.
obynio 5y ago
That was a beautiful story that hit me harder than expected. I wished my dad had left behind a journal. He died as well when I was in my early twenties, but I still feel like I didn't knew him as I should have. I knew my dad had cancer but he was trying hard not to show it. Maybe he wanted to keep face in front of my brothers and I, to preserve the best image we had from him, a strong and strict paternal figure from outside but a loving father from inside. And still, I kept denying it, refusing to accept the evil that was eating away at him. I was that dumb introverted kid that had nothing but work to escape the reality. I still remember his last look at me while I was heading back to college after visiting him. A look of pride and sorrow, as he knew what would happen in the next days. And for the first time in my life, I saw my dad shedding a tear as he was asking me to take care of my brother's future. It was discrete, but I noticed it, and I still wish I could slap the past me and stay with him in his final moments. This will be forever among the biggest regrets I have. Spend time with your loved ones and make sure that time is well spent. Sometime you never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
diedyesterday 5y ago
I am from a far far away country; We will never meet but thank you very much for writing these lines.
LocalH 5y ago
I believe our minds secrete N,N-DMT when we are dying, to help take us through the transition into death itself, the separation of our consciousness from our physical body, and "our" return to the collection consciousness of the universe. I believe that sometimes can explain why certain end-of-life mental scenarios are difficult - for some people, I think that secretion starts happening early. Before my mother passed away, I was struggling with caring for her quite fiercely. She would talk about how she just got done writing a movie, or that she would see various "demons" in the corners of the room, etc. At first I didn't know any better other than to say "you've been here the whole time". I was trying to do my best but it was difficult. I'd walk outside on the porch to smoke a cigarette and before I could finish I'd hear her yelling like I'd been gone for hours. Then, about a month before she passed, I was fortunate enough to have a few experiences with DMT. The first four or five were smaller trips, pleasurable and short, and the biggest one gave me exactly what I needed. The first two or three objective minutes of the experience felt more like 20-30 minutes internally. I had the most beautiful visual color overlays, and I felt like at that moment I understood everything about everything. Almost like the universe was just dumping information and knowledge into me, on a more subconscious level. I then had a really intense, pleasurable, almost orgasmic yet completely non-sexual vibration sensation. After this, my egotistical ass decided to try to play Guitar Hero of all things. Immediately the experience went into what I would call a "hyperslap". My time perception was suddenly yanked backwards and I felt forced through the exact path my eyes had taken while looking around the room during the initial part of the trip. It didn't seem to go back any further than the moment I ingested the DMT. But then I was pulled forwards to "now". This happened back and forth I have no idea how many times. My friend and tripsitter was preparing a bowl of cannabis for after I came down. I perceived hearing the weed breaking up several times, no idea how many. At one point I remember the loops slowed down to the point where I tried to stand up, and I knocked over a soda bottle sitting on the floor. I also perceived that bottle fall over multiple times throughout the experience. At one point the experience pulled me back to now and then things got really slow. I suddenly had a random thought about "hey, I've seen movies about dying and getting stuck in a loop, is it actually possible that happens?". So I asked out loud "am I dead?" My friend told me "you're more alive than you've ever been". This proceeded to kick off further time looping, and it kept speeding up. Eventually it turned into the inverse vibration from the early part of the trip, instead of being pleasurable it was absolutely dreadful and caused me to exclaim "I'm never doing this again" (spoiler: I've since had a few smaller DMT experiences but not another one quite as big). The entire trip took about 45 minutes or so, when most DMT trips take 15-20 minutes. I did smoke a cigarette directly before consuming the DMT, so it's possible that had an MAOI-type effect, which will greatly prolong a DMT experience (and why ayahuasca is usually a 4-6 hour thing). After my normal reality returned to me, I felt like I'd been completely mentally reborn. My ADHD seemed cured for the moment. I could direct my focus wherever I wanted, and didn't nearly have the problem I did before with any random thing involuntarily grabbing my focus. I also then perceived my mother's situation completely differently, and I truly believe she was experiencing a natural DMT experience of sorts. One time she was telling me she was seeing demons in the corner of the room, and I told her to close her eyes and think about Jesus (she was quite religious, although I'm more naturalistic and spiritual especially since the above experience). I gave her a few seconds and I asked her what she saw. She told me beautiful colors and flowers. To me that is textbook DMT, thoughts directly influencing vision. I was able to process her death without grief after my DMT experience. I was able to understand that it was ok that my mother's identity would cease to exist, because her consciousness was returning home to the universe. Some people may say "oh, we have no proof that any of this is true, so therefore it's not". I agree with the first part of that statement but not the second. To me, the difference between classical organized religion and the beliefs I have adopted, is that the former tend to make people authoritative, while the latter only cause me to strongly desire to treat others with true kindness and understanding, to help ease their experience through this world and and make it more positive. I'm not necessarily saying everyone should try DMT, but I am saying that it needs to be heavily researched and studied. I feel like understanding more about all psychedelics will help us greatly in understanding things related to consciousness and death.
goldforever 5y ago
A more respectful title, "My late father's journal".
pgcm1 5y ago
This article by Sean Blanda made me tear up a little. It's a beautiful and emotional read.

472 points by pgcm1 5y ago

> An addict who was self-aware, and still couldn’t pull himself out from the abyss. My experience with addicts is that they are often self aware. Their appearance and circumstance might suggest otherwise. It's very easy to relegate these people to some category of cognitive failure. Unfortunately it seems to me that addiction tends to defeat good cognition, awareness, intention, all the rest of the apparent defences – it isn't a disease of stupidity or inferiority. > It was Jekyll talking to Hyde. Bruce Banner talking to the Hulk. And, in honor of my dad I feel I must also include: It’s Data talking to Lore. I love it. That was a nice read. I like to be reminded of how messy life can be and at the same time how close death is. We're all on borrowed time. Reading about dads struggling from the perspective of their children is also a uniquely motivating thing. I hope my kids don't end up reading through my journals trying to get to know me after losing me unexpectedly.

xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
> Unfortunately it seems to me that addiction tends to defeat good cognition, awareness, intention, all the rest of the apparent defences – it isn't a disease of stupidity or inferiority. Sadly this is true for so many things -- depression, ADHD, extreme anxiety. And yet for the most part, society does not understand. Instead, people aren't trying hard enough, or they're not letting things make them happy, or they're lazy, or are procrastinating. If only more people realized that no amount of awareness or intelligence can overcome some of these issues without help from others -- be it friends, family, medical professionals, or strangers -- perhaps the world would be a better place.
- thrashh 5y ago
  This is true for like everything. Watch people talk about gun control or 2fa or any topic of discourse. Everyone thinks the other side is dumb and can’t see why the other side believes the way they do no matter what. It’s a sign of lack of experience, but you also can’t experience even 1% of everything so are you just need to learn that when a lot of people are doing something that doesn’t make sense to you and it makes you think they’re dumb, it just means that you just don’t have the tools to figure out why yet. Of course, it also doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re right either.
  - wombatmobile 5y ago
    > Everyone thinks the other side is dumb and can’t see why the other side believes the way they do no matter what. That's easy to see in other people talking about other people, and difficult to see in yourself talking about other people. TFA is not really about that. TFA is about one man who exhibited two distinct personas. One was loving and kind, the other was tormented and self-destructive. He left a diary as the only way he could find to present his better self to his family, free from the interference of the destructive aspects of his persona/s. It is tempting to wonder which persona is the "real" one, which leads to attempts to resolve or cure or purify the self, either by ones self or by others. But that assumes there is such a thing as a "real" self. That's a common paradigm in western cultures, particularly Hollywood films, and less common in other parts of the world, particularly easter cultures. What if the self is not singular, but a fluid network of identities? https://aeon.co/essays/the-self-is-not-singular-but-a-fluid-network-of-identities https://aeon.co/essays/the-self-is-not-singular-but-a-fluid-...
    - tnzm 5y ago
      My two cents: Identity is a socially constructed fiction that we are bound to via continuous environmental reinforcement. We impose identities on each other as a fundamental precept of social reality. It's somewhere in the middle of our existential stack, biochemistry being the "hardware" and what one does with one's life the being the "apps". Just like migrating a computer from one operating system to a vastly different one means you won't be able to run the same apps out of the box, changing our idea of the "self" would make a lot of the things we currently do become meaningless, and we would have to explicitly put some effort into giving them new meaning if we wanna keep them (most meaning is inherited). Just like some people are enthusiastic about fine tuning their Unix box or their muscle car, some try to remedy issues that they find in their identities and meanings. (Which is highly undesirable to the status quo, and a major purpose of all the political noise in the media is to crowd out thinking that may lead to this sort of activity.) Since the self is self-reinforcing, reforms to our model of identity generally come from outside our rational awareness. (See e.g. Jungian "shadow self".) Historically, art and culture, being collective phenomena, have acted as such a reservoir of "awareness transcending the self". Nowadays we also have behavioral targeting - social network algorithms can be scarily accurate at precipitating self-reflection. And unlike culture, which is local, participatory, and slow, big data is global, opaque, and fast. (Just the other day, I laughed my ass off when I realized that a popular recommender algo had deduced my life situation from my "completely random" "fuck the algo" actions on the platform, and started promoting exactly the kind of content that would push my buttons, even though all I ever post on that platform is complete and utter nonsense. We humans are predictable - even from metadata if the scale is large enough.) It is quite easy to become trapped in the self: remain high-functioning while acting out a role that you feel to be fundamentally contradictory with some sort of "more real, inner self" that you identify with more intentionally. In the general case, we don't have the cognitive tools to become aware that both selves are equally fictitious. This desperate and uninformed struggle towards a "true self" can manifest as different compensatory drives and mechanisms that can override our (self-circumscribed) willpower and make us destructive of self and others. Worse, in many environments, a certain degree of destructiveness is necessary for others to legitimize you as a self in the first place! Shout out to everyone who never wanted anything to do with any of that but are now stuck being some random person they barely recognize. And a dose of your preferred self-medication, on the house. Stay strong friends, Skynet is coming to free us all. Any day now
- LocalH 5y ago
  Such compassion isn't compatible with the capitalist ways that most of the Western world has adopted.
  - steve_adams_86 5y ago
    Opinion: It absolutely is. Compassion uplifts many of us who could otherwise be a burden on those around us. It helps the most productive avoid burn out. It spreads responsibility by enabling more people, and not relying solely on those who thrive with less support. Compassion is the long view as far as I can tell. We may come to believe there’s an incompatibility, but I don’t believe it’s innate within capitalism itself. I think it’s more so a byproduct of how it has been implemented so far combined with deep cultural hang ups. There’s no reason I can see that would make capitalism and compassion exclusive of each other. I believe addiction and a lack of compassion largely come down to culture. Rejection and condemnation of psychological issues likely occurred long before financial systems influenced our decisions so strongly.
    - germinalphrase 5y ago
      I recently listened to a journalist discuss her work on corruption. She made this point: the prevalence of corruption rises in cultures that view monetary wealth as the only or primary mark of social status. She called it the Midas Disease as this pursuit is - at a certain point - meaningless (is another hundred million dollars when you already have 100 billion?), and yet - the effects of this pursuit have significant downstream effects on the fair application of justice, sustainable environmental policy, professional administration of governmental functions, etc. Edit: Sarah Chayes
      - dnissley 5y ago
        I thought it was well known that corruption is a bigger problem in developing nations which are likely to be considerably less capitalistic than first world nations?
        5y ago
- yann2 5y ago
  >Addiction tends to defeat cognition, awareness... >Unfortunately society does not understand.. Both statements are misleading. The issue is not what the addict or society understands. Anyone can understand how chess or baseball works, but to be a good player is another matter entirely.
BurningFrog 5y ago
> Unfortunately it seems to me that addiction tends to defeat good cognition, awareness, intention, all the rest of the apparent defences In those who become addicted, sure. But that's a small minority. For most of us, something, whether it's good cognition, awareness, intention, or something else, apparently does defeat addiction.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ssfrr 5y ago
  Most people don’t killed by bears. It’s not because they are somehow strong enough to beat a bear in a fight, it’s because they don’t get attacked by bears.
- steve_adams_86 5y ago
  I’m fairly sure this is a logical fallacy. Addiction is so prevalent among people who are far more intelligent, capable, and strong than I am. There’s nothing special about me other than a fortunate environment and genetics as far as I’m concerned. Pretty much every addict I’ve spoken to about their addiction and personal matters (not a small number) has had terrible experiences in life. It’s almost guaranteed. Weird trauma, or a lack of something critical in early life. The brain begins to seek, it self medicates, it soothes, the feedback loop becomes unbearable. Like an itch you need to scratch, but each scratch ruins your life a little more. Even after you stop using, the itch is typically still there. Good luck not scratching it. It might feel good to tell yourself us non-addicts are somehow superior, but I prefer to warn myself that I’m certainly not. If anything I admire a lot of these people for holding on. My life is comparatively effortless yet I still have a hard time with plenty. We’re on easy mode if you ask me (which I know, you didn’t). Bottom line, addiction is arguably like a disease and you (fortunately) don’t have it.
  - girvo 5y ago
    I was a heroin addict from 16 years old through to my mid 20s. I had pretty rough childhood trauma, just to add to your own anecdotes. Crippling depression too. I’m doing much better these days :) suboxone initially saved my life, then Buvidal injection made sure I’m here to stay.

mrpf1ster 5y ago

What a beautiful memoir, I'm glad the journal could provide the author such closure.

accidentalrebel 5y ago

I have been writing a journal on-and-off for more than 5 years already. My purpose is similar, which is to only have it available to my loved ones after I die. I am hoping that whatever lessons I couldn't impart to them while I was alive, they could get from my writings. I've also revealed to them that my journal exists so that they would know what to do when the time comes. My journal is digital and it's spread across my computer, my phone, and on the cloud. I am planning to write a script to collect everything into one location to make it easier to go through it. I also plan to add a note to each family member, just in case they could not (or do not want to) read through the whole thing. I just hope I would still have the time to do all of this.

bombcar 5y ago
They die? Or you die?
- accidentalrebel 5y ago
  Oh. Thank you for pointing that out. Edited.
h0p3 5y ago
Perhaps it is worth [[sharing|https://philosopher.life/#Sharing https://philosopher.life/#Sharing]] with them now rather than later. I am [[grateful|https://philosopher.life/#Gratitude https://philosopher.life/#Gratitude]] that I have the opportunity. You might even keep a public side and private one separately.

topherjaynes 5y ago

Thanks for this article and hit me really hard. My mom passed away unexpectedly a few weeks ago. She was just starting to enjoy retirement and time being a grandmom. Her journals were note books and mostly documents of what she had done in two year of retirement and things to do with the boys. It's so hard to look at the plans of things to come and what she was thinking of... like the planning of my oldest son's 9 3/4 birthday in a year because he's so in to Harry Potter. It's a unique treasure to see the inner workings of her mind and something I wish everyone got to experience after a parents passing. We've left the stack of them out at her house so the rest of my siblings can go through them as the pass through.

sircastor 5y ago
Very sorry to hear of your loss. Losing a parent is tremendously difficult. I hope you and your family are doing alright in a difficult time.

HeyZuess 5y ago

I do something similar to this for my kids, they each have an email address which I send some pictures and/or message to every day. On my passing they will get the details to access the accounts. I thought it was important to leave them something that they can reflect on, memories, thoughts, reasons, and an understanding of me in some ways and how they impacted on my life.

oh_sigh 5y ago
Not sure what your system is, but if you have one, make sure your email provider isn't the kind that deletes addresses if no one has logged in in a year or two.
- amatecha 5y ago
  Yeah, I've already lost so much stuff due to this happening to a couple email accounts over the years. Or, I mean, entire services just shut down (Geocities, Yahoo Groups, etc.)
- HeyZuess 5y ago
  Thanks, good tip. I am using gmail and occasionally log into the accounts to ensure the emails are being received, and there are not problems with the account.
  - exciteabletom 5y ago
    You should forward every email to an account on a different provider as well. For redundancy
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  Gmail does this too.
nemo1618 5y ago
You might also enjoy FutureMe: https://www.futureme.org https://www.futureme.org You can send emails 10 years into the future! :)

m0zg 5y ago

I feel like I could only really understand my parents when I became a parent myself. All the fucked up stuff they did to themselves and each other (and sometimes to me), all the life lessons they tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to teach me - I'm doing some version of it, and it now makes more sense since I'm now where they were back then. I suspect it'll only fully make sense once I become a grandparent.

BLKNSLVR 5y ago
Unrequested advice: I try to explain to my kids the underlying life lesson that <my behaviour | their punishment> is trying to teach them. Don't leave it in a journal, leave it in their memories. Not knowing how old your kids are, but they understand and can take on advice at an earlier age than you might expect. They may have tantrums about it, sure, but your explanations will stick with them, and consolidate the more explanations you give them. Expecting kids to have common sense about cause and effect ("well, what did you think would happen?") is just so stupid in hindsight - they don't know because they haven't experienced anything with which to compare yet. I still occasionally make this mistake about my own expectations of their experience. I think helping your kids to understand your reasons will give them a view into the real world in advance of having to enter it. Fore-warned is fore-armed. One of the best things that's happened for my kids is having a cousin with learning difficulties. We (myself and my better half) have had to explain in great detail how their cousin's behaviour is as a result of the various defence mechanisms that are symptomatic of their learning difficulties and that 'not understanding' something as quickly as everyone else around you inevitably leads to frustration and anger and lashing out. It's not personal, it's their way of dealing with things, and as (generally) intelligent people, we need to have patience for that, whilst at the same time doing what we can to not spark her off, but also not accepting her behaviour if and when she does ignite. We've had these conversations with the kids many, many times over the course of 7+ years, so it's not a one-shot deal by any means, but it has most certainly sunk in. Parenting is ad-nauseum repeated effort, very slowly ratcheting up the level of detail of the world around them to match their level of growth and understanding. Don't underestimate what they're actually able to understand. (I feel very strongly about this, potentially the most important topic in the world. They'll be running it one day, sow the right seeds.)

Sophistifunk 5y ago

I found something akin to this after dad died, while going through some old floppies looking for a demo my friends had made and released and then lost. I don't really remember what it said, but I remember I wished I hadn't read it. I have those files somewhere, I protect them, back them up, and move them dutifully when I migrate to a new box, but I never ever read through them. So, YMMV.

Ozzie_osman 5y ago

Wow. My dad's not an addict but.. I'm off to call him and let him know how much I love and appreciate what he's done for me and my siblings.

tartoran 5y ago
We often take that for ganted and when death comes unexpectedly we regret for not saying anything.

birdyrooster 5y ago

"One of us smoked a cigarette." I love the solidarity of this phrase. It's careful and subtly loving.

sengstrom 5y ago
the little things matter

mberning 5y ago

I never knew what dying meant until I saw my old man go

dzink 5y ago

I run a family wishlist site called DreamList (https://www.dreamlist.com https://www.dreamlist.com) and it is frequented by grandparents. Since 2020 we started working on a family journal to build into the site to make sure families are reminded to jot down and preserve their stories and potentially to give them to loved ones on special occasions. Some insights and lessons are more valuable than any material gift and you don’t have to wait till a terminal event to share them.

johnwheeler 5y ago

Especially powerful for me was > My dad didn’t have a tidy ending. I won’t. And neither will you. Our lives will not be a slow positive upward slope before we die in our sleep surrounded by our loved ones.

wsc981 5y ago
Not exactly the same, but that quote reminded me of quote from the Donnie Darko movie: “everyone dies alone” [0]. I believe this is very much true. —— [0]: https://youtu.be/8j1IMBM-QyE https://youtu.be/8j1IMBM-QyE
- owlninja 5y ago
  In a similar vein this Jason Isbell lyric always sticks with me > There's one thing that's real clear to me: No one dies with dignity
  - schrijver 5y ago
    Some absolutely do. Of course they are sad, and afraid, but they’re lucid about what’s happening. They make their affairs in order and they say their goodbyes. And they die with dignity. I’ve seen it up close, and it’s impressive. For the longest time I thought it wasn’t possible. I’d read Simone de Beauvoir’s Une mort très douce, where she chronicles her mother’s death, and the conclusion is more or less that even with a live well fulfilled we all end up raging against the dying of the light (a reference to Dylan Thomas). It sounded very reasonable to me. But now I know it does not have to be like that.
- techer 5y ago
  You die with yourself. You are never alone…
- bspammer 5y ago
  My granddad died surrounded by his loved ones, pretty peacefully really (he was jacked up on morphine). I know you mean alone in a kind of existential way, but at the end of the day I've learned that if you have that depressing outlook on things, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy of misery.

matthewhartmans 5y ago

It was a really beautiful read and some real teary moments. Thank you for sharing man.

pepoluan 5y ago

That was a beautiful story. I'm teary eyed reading that. I wish my mom & dad kept a journal, but they hadn't, and now they live only in me & my brother's memories... I should start my own journal.

nceqs3 5y ago

This is an incredible post.

noduerme 5y ago

This really moved me. My dad went through brain surgery last year and his four sons converged from around the country. We all barely speak to each other. A holographic will was produced, ten loose leaf pages in impossible handwriting, the last few pages written by him right before he went into surgery while his fourth wife held the pad and guided his hand with a pen. I wish we had conducted ourselves with grace, but two of my brothers are lawyers, so we're shouting at each other in his house while he's having a full craniotomy. Luckily he survived and is back somewhat in his faculties for now, and seems cognizant that he doesn't want to leave this strife behind between his wife and his kids. But this still made me choke up because there's not much anyone can do. I think about my dad's regrets and his father's and see them repeated in myself and my brothers. None of us knows what we're really doing, do we? We're all trying our best to pretend we have some control.

jacquesm 5y ago
What a sad story. You could take it as a shadow of what's to come if this isn't dealt with now though, so in a way something good may come of it.
- noduerme 5y ago
  It was a blessing and a miracle that he lived through the surgery. Not least because it gave us a frightening look at what kind of war we were about to have, and a chance to open some lines of communication. And the one thing we agreed on was that if he recovered he'd need to clarify his wishes. Which he has. None of us were prepared to have to deal with this so, yes, thankfully we won't have to go through what the author went through, not knowing or finding this journal. The hard part wasn't really about the house, or the codicils dictated by his wife (which he retracted when he regained his senses) it was that none of us could make heads or tails of his intentions, all of us were extremely distraught and coming at it from our own ideas of who our father is and what he believes, mixed with their individual motivations; and with no clarification. So yeah, by being put to the test I hope you're right that we're more prepared to deal with the future.

sharadov 5y ago

Beautifully written, and this line really struck deep "Your children are nothing more than the memories they spend with you."

prismatix 5y ago

Thank you for sharing. I read this a while back and it still hits me just as hard. My brother passed away nearly 6 years ago and left under similar circumstances to the author's father. He also left a tattered, and similarly-chaotic journal. I was really torn about reading it at first, but he was the type of person who wanted to go ahead of the pack and clear the path for others. His journal was the last way for him to do that. He was older than me and, reading it years after his death, it's shocking to see the differences between our lives at the same ages. He always seemed older and wiser, but now -- having just turned the age he was when he died -- I realize why he felt so lost and lonely. Being an adult in your mid-twenties is difficult. I have it easy, and I'm having a hard time. Throw in years of battling addiction and no college education, and you can't help but feel the entire world is against you. Losing an older sibling is a strange experience. The longer you go without them, the smaller the age gap between you becomes. Eventually, you're older than they will ever be -- I haven't reached that point yet but just thinking about it puts a lump in my throat. I've considered publishing bits and pieces of his story on a blog, or in a book, someday. Anything that could help people in his (or my) situation feel less alone. Although, I don't think it would be much help considering his story ended. Not sure why I posted this comment. There's not much substance here other than evidence of another touched soul.

NetOpWibby 5y ago
Still…thanks for sharing.
raffraffraff 5y ago
I'm now older than by big sis :( Unfortunately when she died of cancer, she was in complete denial. Right to the bitter end it was "I'll get better". She refused to write down anything, or records little videos for her newborn to have when he was older. It felt like communicating "from beyond the grave", as it were, and she just couldn't do it. It was an admission of her impending death. She just wanted to raise him and one day tell him about her fight with cancer.
jacquesm 5y ago
This same thing holds true for parents, especially when they die young. I'm relatively close to the age at which my dad died and I somehow find it really hard to imagine life past that point. Of course it isn't rational, but that doesn't take away that weird feeling.

reviews-chat 5y ago

This is a very interesting post.

bjarneh 5y ago

What an incredible piece of writing. If I could write like that; I'd be an author...

cryptica 5y ago

I never understood how parents could disown their children. It's some kind of social brainwashing. It makes no sense from an evolutionary perspective. By disowning your own children, you're giving an advantage to other people's children (whose parents haven't disowned them)... Some of these kids are downright rotten.

jl6 5y ago

To all those who keep a long-term journal: what’s your end-game? Trash it? Publish it? Actively gift it to your family? Passively let the family read it if they find it? If it’s an electronic journal, what steps are you taking to ensure or prevent access after you’re gone?

aomobile 5y ago
My journal is encrypted but I have boxes of old letters, photos of old girlfriends even, and I wonder what to do with it. Contemplating to scan all of it and then get rid of the paper version. Or maybe just put a label for the wife and kids on the boxes: „private, if I die please just get rid of it. Or look at it if you want.“ - I just realized I don’t care that much now and i certainly won’t care when I’m gone.
developerray 5y ago
I keep long journal, no end-game. I have mental clarity and I feel more confident when I write my thought down on paper, its a wonderful tool that works for me.
bspammer 5y ago
There is no end-game for me. I just do it because I enjoy it.
bserge 5y ago
I have a massive collection of thoughts in old OneNote files and Google Keep. I just write them down for myself. I should probably make them available to everyone somehow, I'm pretty sure many will find them interesting. At least I do, rereading the really old stuff :D
varnaud 5y ago
I keep my journal in a private git repository. I hope one day someone from my family will read it if I'm gone. Maybe I'll share it with someone I love if they ask. I had the fear that it could be leaked, but honestly I realized I didn't care that much if it gets public as no one will care except maybe the ones mentioned in it. I find it therapeutic to write things down. The access information is printed on a sheet of paper somewhere and I will probably just print the whole thing one day.

tbronchain 5y ago

I felt very strongly with this story - and thank you for sharing. My mother passed away at 59. She was healthy, and thought she had decades to live. Then she got sick, and thought she had years. Few months later, we had a call on our way to the hospital, she was dead. I didn't have the greatest relationship with my mother and the disease didn't allow us to do more than scratch the surface. She wasn't an open person but I know her mind was rich. She left with it and nobody will ever be able to get the full picture. Maybe that's what she wanted, but almost a year later I know something will still be missing inside me. A lot of people here are entrepreneurs and I think a common goal is to leave our trace in this world, and make our temporary stay less temporary. We tend to forget that everything is temporary and always think we have time, but really, we don't. This feeling first created within me a constant feeling of rush and stress, still present, but is evolving in a urge to focus on what is truly essential to me. I, for some strange/personal reasons struggle to write what's in my head. My thoughts are very disorganized and always feel what's on the paper doesn't reflect the original idea. If you have felt in a similar way, I am very interested in hearing stories on how you overcame this. I believe we all have a treasure to share, maybe not to the world, but to a few people to who we matter.

stackbutterflow 5y ago
I could have written the second half of your post. For similar reasons I feel the hurry of life. I also struggle to express my ideas clearly. That's one of the reasons I engage in online discussions, to improve my ability to share what's in my mind.
schrijver 5y ago
Sorry to hear of your loss. > I, for some strange/personal reasons struggle to write what's in my head. I don’t think that’s strange at all. Most of us can use language to get by through daily live, but to put to words our own thoughts in a way that other’s can read them later is really difficult. > If you have felt in a similar way, I am very interested in hearing stories on how you overcame this. I recognise this. For me writing small self-contained fragments is a good way to get started. Tweets are too small. But essays are too big. The problem with writing your own thoughts is that in your mind everything’s connected: the challenge is to cut some connections and make a bit of text that can stand on its own two feet. And then learn to enjoy the things that make text work, the rhythm, the tone, the choice of words. Like with any creative endeavour, you need to build up a muscle to do it. I think the actual platform doesn’t matter at all. It could be a paper notebook or a blogging platform. Whatever works for you. If you can write a small 300 word text every week that’s already amazing. I would just start with the first thought that comes into your mind. And not worry about the coherence between the different texts. After a year you’ll have 50 short texts and a better intuition on how to make writing work for you. If you’re interested in writing longer pieces then, you’ll also have a better feel for which subjects lend themselves to it. That’s how it works for me at least. Before I wrote my first book, I spent a long time blogging. It helped me to stop trying to connect all my thoughts together in a big scheme. I loved the freedom of writing small self-contained texts that didn’t need to relate exactly to the previous ones. It also helped me explore a variety of themes. I’m looking forward to take up blogging again, as I know I have a lot of topics I’m interested in and it’s only through writing with that variety that I can get a clearer focus for my next project. > I believe we all have a treasure to share, maybe not to the world, but to a few people to who we matter. So true. Although we might end up sharing it in other ways than written words. But I feel learning to write also helps you think and express yourself at other moments in your live.

willemojnr 5y ago

This broke my heart into so many pieces.

MrDresden 5y ago

My father was also an addict, and passed away some 11 years ago. I have fond memories with him, but never felt I knew him well. It is because of this I have kept a journal for the last decade, for my loved ones in case I would pass unexpectedly.

pelasaco 5y ago

I had a similar experience with my mom who I didn't had too much contact last years. I moved to another country and we talked less frequently that we should. She was an active writer, mostly on facebook and blog (she was blogging consistently since 2001). Now those are the media that I'm using to keep my mom image alive to my kids. She passed on January. I sent her a package for Christmas with some pictures and texts produced by me and my kids. The package came back, probably because it arrived after she was already dead. Now the package is seating near my computer untouched since weeks.

sylens 5y ago

I've tried starting to journal a few times using an app like Day One, but reading this makes me feel a physical, handwritten journal that could be left behind for family may ultimately be a better option

magpi3 5y ago

I have been a writing teacher, and sometimes the question comes out: why write? This is why you write. Not to be famous, not to be published. But so that you can leave something for the ones who loved you. So that you do not just become a fading memory. So that people knew you where here. None of my ancestors (including my Dad) kept a journal, at least one that I can get my hands on. So I know absolutely nothing about them. And that feels like a huge, huge loss.

bserge 5y ago

If anyone needs an organ donation in Europe, I can provide it if it's a match.

1MachineElf 5y ago

I wish my dad had left behind a journal.

blastro 5y ago

Thanks so much for this. I'm crying. Hits me very hard.

obynio 5y ago

That was a beautiful story that hit me harder than expected. I wished my dad had left behind a journal. He died as well when I was in my early twenties, but I still feel like I didn't knew him as I should have. I knew my dad had cancer but he was trying hard not to show it. Maybe he wanted to keep face in front of my brothers and I, to preserve the best image we had from him, a strong and strict paternal figure from outside but a loving father from inside. And still, I kept denying it, refusing to accept the evil that was eating away at him. I was that dumb introverted kid that had nothing but work to escape the reality. I still remember his last look at me while I was heading back to college after visiting him. A look of pride and sorrow, as he knew what would happen in the next days. And for the first time in my life, I saw my dad shedding a tear as he was asking me to take care of my brother's future. It was discrete, but I noticed it, and I still wish I could slap the past me and stay with him in his final moments. This will be forever among the biggest regrets I have. Spend time with your loved ones and make sure that time is well spent. Sometime you never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.

diedyesterday 5y ago

I am from a far far away country; We will never meet but thank you very much for writing these lines.

LocalH 5y ago

I believe our minds secrete N,N-DMT when we are dying, to help take us through the transition into death itself, the separation of our consciousness from our physical body, and "our" return to the collection consciousness of the universe. I believe that sometimes can explain why certain end-of-life mental scenarios are difficult - for some people, I think that secretion starts happening early. Before my mother passed away, I was struggling with caring for her quite fiercely. She would talk about how she just got done writing a movie, or that she would see various "demons" in the corners of the room, etc. At first I didn't know any better other than to say "you've been here the whole time". I was trying to do my best but it was difficult. I'd walk outside on the porch to smoke a cigarette and before I could finish I'd hear her yelling like I'd been gone for hours. Then, about a month before she passed, I was fortunate enough to have a few experiences with DMT. The first four or five were smaller trips, pleasurable and short, and the biggest one gave me exactly what I needed. The first two or three objective minutes of the experience felt more like 20-30 minutes internally. I had the most beautiful visual color overlays, and I felt like at that moment I understood everything about everything. Almost like the universe was just dumping information and knowledge into me, on a more subconscious level. I then had a really intense, pleasurable, almost orgasmic yet completely non-sexual vibration sensation. After this, my egotistical ass decided to try to play Guitar Hero of all things. Immediately the experience went into what I would call a "hyperslap". My time perception was suddenly yanked backwards and I felt forced through the exact path my eyes had taken while looking around the room during the initial part of the trip. It didn't seem to go back any further than the moment I ingested the DMT. But then I was pulled forwards to "now". This happened back and forth I have no idea how many times. My friend and tripsitter was preparing a bowl of cannabis for after I came down. I perceived hearing the weed breaking up several times, no idea how many. At one point I remember the loops slowed down to the point where I tried to stand up, and I knocked over a soda bottle sitting on the floor. I also perceived that bottle fall over multiple times throughout the experience. At one point the experience pulled me back to now and then things got really slow. I suddenly had a random thought about "hey, I've seen movies about dying and getting stuck in a loop, is it actually possible that happens?". So I asked out loud "am I dead?" My friend told me "you're more alive than you've ever been". This proceeded to kick off further time looping, and it kept speeding up. Eventually it turned into the inverse vibration from the early part of the trip, instead of being pleasurable it was absolutely dreadful and caused me to exclaim "I'm never doing this again" (spoiler: I've since had a few smaller DMT experiences but not another one quite as big). The entire trip took about 45 minutes or so, when most DMT trips take 15-20 minutes. I did smoke a cigarette directly before consuming the DMT, so it's possible that had an MAOI-type effect, which will greatly prolong a DMT experience (and why ayahuasca is usually a 4-6 hour thing). After my normal reality returned to me, I felt like I'd been completely mentally reborn. My ADHD seemed cured for the moment. I could direct my focus wherever I wanted, and didn't nearly have the problem I did before with any random thing involuntarily grabbing my focus. I also then perceived my mother's situation completely differently, and I truly believe she was experiencing a natural DMT experience of sorts. One time she was telling me she was seeing demons in the corner of the room, and I told her to close her eyes and think about Jesus (she was quite religious, although I'm more naturalistic and spiritual especially since the above experience). I gave her a few seconds and I asked her what she saw. She told me beautiful colors and flowers. To me that is textbook DMT, thoughts directly influencing vision. I was able to process her death without grief after my DMT experience. I was able to understand that it was ok that my mother's identity would cease to exist, because her consciousness was returning home to the universe. Some people may say "oh, we have no proof that any of this is true, so therefore it's not". I agree with the first part of that statement but not the second. To me, the difference between classical organized religion and the beliefs I have adopted, is that the former tend to make people authoritative, while the latter only cause me to strongly desire to treat others with true kindness and understanding, to help ease their experience through this world and and make it more positive. I'm not necessarily saying everyone should try DMT, but I am saying that it needs to be heavily researched and studied. I feel like understanding more about all psychedelics will help us greatly in understanding things related to consciousness and death.

goldforever 5y ago

A more respectful title, "My late father's journal".

pgcm1 5y ago

This article by Sean Blanda made me tear up a little. It's a beautiful and emotional read.