Ancestors

Like all living things on this Earth, we are born, we grow, we thrive, we weaken, and we eventually die. Right down to the smallest bacteria, each of us a tiny spark amid this enormous interconnected ocean of life, looping through the endless iteration of the eons. Birth, growth, reproduction, death, repeat. Fragments of our DNA live on beneath the surface, an endlessly long trail forming the fabric of our reality, like ghostly echoes on an endless tape loop. In a very real scientific sense, part of us does live forever, and who we are is a unique sum of fragments of all those that have come before us.

This is real, and it is astounding, and it is beautiful.

Rest in peace, Irene Hicox. You will be missed, but your echoes will be felt for many generations to come.