This Monday, I went with my wife to a cemetery to exhume her father’s remains.
It was a hot day. The kind that doesn’t just make you sweat, but makes your skin feel like it is being slow-roasted. The kind of heat that makes silence thicker. Even the shadows seemed reluctant to move.
We were there because the lease on his grave had ended. His bones would be moved to a small niche with his name etched on it. This would be his final resting place.
There was no ceremony. No priest present. Just the administrative closing of a chapter.
The undertaker who met us was brusque and in a hurry. This was just something that had been pencilled into his schedule. There was no exchange of pleasantries. He made it clear this task would need to be completed before the funeral scheduled for later that afternoon. If not sooner.
For us, of course, this was no routine moment. My wife stood quietly as her father’s remains were collected. I kept my eyes steady, trying to stay composed. But inside, I could feel something shift.
There were rows and rows of these stone niches around us. Small rectangular spaces stacked into walls. Each had a name, some accompanied by dates, some by photographs. I paused before a few. There were no names I recognised. Just evidence that this someone once lived. They were born. They died. And time, as it always does, moved on.
I found myself wondering: What did they worry about? What did they dream of? What lives did they live, inside their homes, behind their eyes, in their hearts? Did they chase ambition? Did they love well? Were they loved in return?
All this while, my mind was making its way to that inevitable thought: One day, I would be in such a niche. Eventually forgotten. Just a quiet name on a wall.
The thought, far from feeling morbid, was oddly calming. I have spent most of my adult life striving. Doing, building, producing, creating. Like many people I know, I’ve had a faint but persistent desire to leave something behind. A legacy, maybe. Something that “lasts”.
Standing there, squinting into the heat, it started to become clear: nothing truly lasts. Eventually, everything fades.
We don’t like to admit this. Modern life is built on the denial of impermanence. We preserve, document, post, publish. We archive our lives. We pretend that visibility is permanence. But time has other plans.
There’s something profoundly liberating in accepting that. In knowing that no matter how hard I work, how much I do, I will one day be forgotten. The digital traces I’ve left behind will be overwritten. Or lost. Or ignored.
Acknowledging this allows me to ask myself: If all will eventually be forgotten, how do I want to live now?
The answer is surprisingly simple. I want to live fully in the moment. Be present for the people I care about. Write not for posterity, but because the act of writing feels true in the moment. Love not to be remembered, but because love is its own reward.
There is a phrase that comes to us from Stoic philosophy: Memento mori (Remember that you must die). Not as a reason to be grim. But as a way to remember what matters.
The Gita puts it differently, but no less powerfully: “You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction.”
It is the same invitation: To live sincerely, without clinging to outcome.
As we left the cemetery, the undertaker had already moved on. The funeral was about to begin.
My wife and I didn’t say much on the way out. There was no need. The sun was high. The heat pressed down. Life continued. For now.
(Charles Assisi is co-founder of Founding Fuel. He can be reached on assisi@foundingfuel.com)
