How to gain the whole world and lose your soul

Are we really just dust and gas?

Crucified Land | Alexandre Hogue (1939)

My Father’s Death

When I sat with my father’s body after he died, it was apparent to me that whatever made my father my father was not there any more.

By apparent, I mean:

1. His body was not animate: His lungs, heart, and brain were not functional, and thus the rest of his body was still.

2. Therefore I couldn’t interact with him at all. Instead of a human being, he was a corpse.

My father had transformed from a human being to a corpse after a long period of suffering with dementia. His body had given up.

But what about his soul?

As a practicing Zen Buddhist at the time of his death, I didn’t believe there was any such thing as a soul. The rest of my family are Evangelical Christians, and so the soul is the centerpiece of their faith.

We watched my father disappear in real time, and without the ability to communicate with him over the last few months, we had no way to know if what we understood to be him was still in there.

Dementia is a particularly cruel disease, in which you lose someone you love gradually, bit by tormenting bit. Sometimes their body remains healthy…