Guest Post from Whoa-man as part of the The Exponent and Doves and Serpents swap.
Hi, I am Whoa-man from Exponent. My husband and I are both PhD students trying to figure out equally-shared parenting with our 18 month old. When I heard about the blog swap I was excited to write a piece for Knit Together about the moment where I began to see my family as something that could never be divided.
I have a lot of existential questions. “Don’t worry about it because you will know after this life” has never been enough for me. Life after death is one of these concepts I struggle with understanding logically, but it is something that I painfully want to believe in. I want to believe that there is a way that I can be together with my family forever. But I have never been able to fully incorporate this beautiful vision into my science-based brain. I have tried to come up with some theories that make sense: organic matter, carbon, and fossils all find ways to “live” after death and the circle of life mandates that my body gives life unto soil, plants, and eventually, animals as a food source, and thus we are somehow all “together forever.” These types of explanations make my family members roll their eyes and wonder “why can’t you just believe?” I used to reply with something along the lines of “I don’t know. It just feels fake to believe in something I don’t understand.” But now I have a different answer.
I had the most incredible experience a little over a year ago. I was pregnant with my first baby and my husband was at a work party. He was uncharacteristically late (really really late) and not answering his phone. In my panicked mind, many tragedies had already befallen him and I was going to have to raise this child alone. I was hypothetically mourning the love of my life as my baby erratically moved inside of me when the most moving and powerful thought occurred to me. We were forever and always inextricably connected. My DNA and his DNA crossed over during meiosis into this unique combination. My beautiful daughter was the living embodiment of our love. Our genes were forever enshrined into her little body, never to be separated. Death could not destroy that genetic combination and her future children will only increase exponentially that love. It was the most comforting feeling for me to finally believe that no matter what happened, our love was forever united and the most basic units of our lives were connected for eternity even long after we passed.
Logically, I know that my theory is probably not what the apostles are thinking when they talk about eternal families, but it was the only description of eternal love that made sense to me and it was a great testimony builder for the principles I had chosen to live. Somehow, the process of genomic cross-over established in my heart what no amount of scripture study had done. It made my family feel literally knit together.
That is beautiful. Gave me chills.
Amen.
Great post, Whoa-man!
I’m sorry to take this in a sad direction, but I think your realization is another reason why people might mourn the death of a child so much. It’s the loss of some of the bond with their spouse too.
I agree. I can not imagine the burden and pain of such a loss. I think my theory works in so many ways that make me happy, but fails in other ways. I’ve lost a lot of family members to death and I can’t fathom how I can actually see them again. Scientifically, it just doesn’t make sense. Maybe I’ll have another great experience and figure that one out soon.
Whoa-man, this really resonates for me! When my grandmother died last year I went to visit her grave several months later when I could finally get myself to St. George where she is buried. When I sat on her grave in the grass with the wind lightly blowing and the sun warming my back, I realized that I believed she really was just a body in a box in the ground. And it made me cry because it was sad to me that I really believe that, but also because it was so beautiful to feel the circle of life in that moment. My DNA was part of her, and I was alive. And my children will have her DNA, and mine, and they will live on.
I also like the idea that the air I breathe was part of the world from the beginning. My arm is made from atoms that have been everywhere. It’s very comforting to think of how interconnected we really are with each other and the earth and all the things in our world. We literally ARE each other. And that’s a strong bond.
Ohhh. I LOVE this! Thank you.
I love this.
Beautiful, beautiful post Whoa-Man.
You have beautifully put into words many similar thoughts of my own. Ultimately, I find this approach more hopeful than the more orthodox.
Thank you.
So what about those who have adopted children? There doesn’t seem to be any comfort there for a parent who loves their adopted children.
Oh, you’re right, Laura.
You are right, Laura. In so many ways this story doesn’t apply to everyone or give comfort to most. Somehow it made a huge difference to me at that time and still does when I think of those I’ve lost. However, we need a different model for adoption. What has worked for you?
One of my students told me about this website today. It is artwork created with your unique DNA sequence. I figured I’d share it in light of this providential coincidence! http://www.dna11.com/gallery_portraits.asp
Beautiful thoughts. I have made peace with the idea that our immortality could be that we live on through our descendants, those loving crossovers you describe, and the ways we have touched and improved people and the world around us.
I am also enchanted by the idea that if you took a 4-dimensional picture of any human being, it would look like a chain that connects all ancestors and progeny forward and back.
I really enjoyed you sharing your epiphany, Whoa-man.
A dear friend of mine passed away as a young mother of two boys three years ago. It always takes my breath away to see _her_ in her little boys. It’s achingly beautiful to me.
Well, I’m adopted so I guess I’m not loved…………
I do like this idea, that the eternity of our living has to do with the ways we shape others. But as much as I recognize the beauty of the literal genetic, biological intersections you talk about here, Whoa-man, I just can’t place much value in those myself. I do understand the point you make; and I recognize the ways in which it would speak to someone of a scientific bent. But wouldn’t the intersections of psychological connection and social influence be just as fully premised on an empirical reality as the biological genetic intersections? And like Roe and Laura, I am left out of your conception of living eternally, except through tangential genetic connections with nieces and nephews. It seems a sad sort of way to live eternally for me without my own children biologically originating in an act of love between myself and my spouse.
At the end of the day it is true that I am comprised of a unique genetic make-up that came from my parents, but it is their years of loving me and comforting me when I have hurt and encouraging me in my pursuits, and loving me in spite of disagreeing with me that will stay with me as meaningful. It is their example of loving one another, of dealing with others around them patiently, of seeing the beauty in the world that has contributed to my own interactions with others and my world. I occasionally glimpse one of my parents in my face, or in my posture, or my coloring; but it is their emotional and spiritual influence that shapes my outlook on every single day of my life. And this kind of intersection is universally applicable. Not necessarily the emotional, psychological intersection between biological parents and children, because not everyone has relationships with biological parents. But everyone does have some person somewhere who influences them for good, who shapes their perspectives. And then that person goes on to shape and influence others around them. It is the emotional, psychological, spiritual interconnectedness that lives on for me.
I had a non-Mormon boyfriend once explain his vision of the afterlife as being living on in the memories and perspectives and attitudes of the people whose lives were intertwined with his own. I like that notion. I like that it situates eternal life in knowing and loving others, which jives very nicely with scriptural commentary on eternal life actually.