I attended the memorial of a prominent environmental scientist last night. I was there to support my wife, she was his colleague and mentor. He was taken from us too young, with so much left to give his family, science and the world.
I didn’t know him well, but what I heard deeply affected me. So I wanted to write down some reflections inspired by the memorial.
The event was a memorial and celebration of life. They chose as the dress code silly t-shirts, apparently he liked them. The only time I ever met him personally was at a workshop, and he was wearing such a shirt.
I was a stranger to most people, meeting them for the first time at this event. But I felt like I was part of the family and friends when I left. Breaking down the formalities of an end of life service, and making it a celebration of life, gave the event a deep intimacy.
Here was someone who lived life to the fullest, whether it was family, work or play. The cliche goes that on your deathbed you will wish you spent less time working, and more time with your family.
A long battle with cancer probably offers one many chances to reflect on that cliche.
I heard how he was a deep thinker and I imagine he would have thought about these big choices we have to make in life.
And I don’t think he would have found regret in that cliche. He was still planning his next move in science, right until the end. Not exclusively, he had many plans with his family too. But science was part of life too.
The science he wanted to do was going to help the environment, help make the world a better place for his children and grand children.
Many fathers and scientists of my generation will feel the same. We give all we can to family and to our careers. The generation before us were born in this culture of men do the work, women do the childcare. I suspect many of that generation did regret not spending more time with family.
My life I’ve had the opportunity and cultural endorsement to be a more engaged father. How blessed we are in this generation.
His daughter bravely read the lyrics from one of her father’s favourite artists, Nick Cave.
I heard her quotation as: “When you’re standing on the crossroads, that you cannot comprehend, just remember that death is at the end.”
For me, that quote shows how another cliche on choices falls short ‘do that thing you always dreamed of doing but never had the courage to do’.
The quote is a reminder that when we make a choice, we should give it all we’ve got. Every decision is a tradeoff against something else we would otherwise be doing.
I looked up the Nick Cave song and quotation for this post, and it turns out I misheard ‘at’. I was standing at the back of a packed room and there were tears. So I can be excused. But, the meaning is even deeper than I appreciated at the time:
When you’re standing on the crossroads
That you cannot comprehend
Just remember that death is not the endNick Cave. Death is Not the End.
What a privilege and opportunity we have in science. For some of us, death is not the end of our work. I hope he knew what his colleagues told us at the memorial: how they plan to continue the work he was doing.
So, when faced with a fork in the road, consider choosing a path that is worthwhile for others to follow after you’ve gone.
References
Nick Cave: Death is not the end
On a science note, this paper has had a life-long influence on the way I think about science and modelling “Model based grouping of species across environmental gradients”