Som far till Lauren och Marina, make till Airdrie, skicklig skribent och uppskattad bloggare, har kanadensaren Derek K. Miller spelat såväl stora som små roller i andras liv, hos familj, vänner och de främlingar som följt hans ord.
I går uppdaterades hans blogg.
Here it is. I’m dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote—the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive.
[...]
I haven’t gone to a better place, or a worse one. I haven’t gone anyplace, because Derek doesn’t exist anymore. As soon as my body stopped functioning, and the neurons in my brain ceased firing, I made a remarkable transformation: from a living organism to a corpse, like a flower or a mouse that didn’t make it through a particularly frosty night. The evidence is clear that once I died, it was over.
So I was unafraid of death—of the moment itself—and of what came afterwards, which was (and is) nothing. As I did all along, I remained somewhat afraid of the process of dying, of increasing weakness and fatigue, of pain, of becoming less and less of myself as I got there. I was lucky that my mental faculties were mostly unaffected over the months and years before the end, and there was no sign of cancer in my brain—as far as I or anyone else knew.
[...]
There can’t be answers today. While I was still alive writing this, I was sad to know I’ll miss these things—not because I won’t be able to witness them, but because Air, Marina, and Lauren won’t have me there to support their efforts.
It turns out that no one can imagine what’s really coming in our lives. We can plan, and do what we enjoy, but we can’t expect our plans to work out. Some of them might, while most probably won’t. Inventions and ideas will appear, and events will occur, that we could never foresee. That’s neither bad nor good, but it is real.
[...]
The world, indeed the whole universe, is a beautiful, astonishing, wondrous place. There is always more to find out. I don’t look back and regret anything, and I hope my family can find a way to do the same.
What is true is that I loved them. Lauren and Marina, as you mature and become yourselves over the years, know that I loved you and did my best to be a good father.
Airdrie, you were my best friend and my closest connection. I don’t know what we’d have been like without each other, but I think the world would be a poorer place. I loved you deeply, I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.
När jag läser Dereks sista ord, känner jag vördnad inför den värdighet med vilken han mötte döden. Livsglädjen och kärleken: allt berikas av hans vetenskapliga skepticism och humanistiska utblick över livet. Här finns ingen ångest, ingen ånger, ingen bedjan till ett fantasifoster om att få blott ett ögonblick mer. Bara tacksamhet inför allt han faktiskt fick.
Vad kan vara vackrare?
We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands. The loom of time and space works the most astonishing transformations of matter.
– Carl Sagan
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