Is Paddy Heneghan Dead? – Liam Heneghan

In this third story we’re sharing in partnership with the Center
for Humans and Nature, ecosystem ecologist Liam Heneghan turns to a
council of philosophers and physicists to help reconcile the human
experience of growth with the reality of decay as he keeps vigil by
his father’s bedside. He contemplates how closely life sits at the
margins of death—one bleeding into the other—and wonders what can
be learned from the everyday breakdown of leaves, milk,
friendships, solar systems that might orient us to the nature of
our own passage from life to death. As his father passes—elements
dispersing into air and soil—Liam recognizes that all that
flourishes must return to Earth; that in decay, something always
endures.  Read the essay. Illustration by Ibrahim Rayintakath.
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