Preparing for Death: The Debate on What to Leave Behind

Preparing for death: legacy, heirs, and a pool with your face

There is a question that creeps into any conversation once you pass forty: what the hell do you leave behind when you die? The original premise came from someone who had it clear: once everyone who remembers you dies, your existence evaporates. To avoid this, they proposed building a physical vestige, something cheap and durable that in a thousand years provokes a "what's this?" in whoever finds it. The example cited is not trivial: an acquaintance built a huge pool and at the bottom, in mosaic, instead of the classic dolphin, put his own face large. His motive, he said, was that whoever inherited the house would have to spend money removing it. Preparing for death, in a resentful version with tiles.

Legacy as investment: from the pool to the mausoleum

The idea of leaving a physical trace has defenders and detractors, and the economic calculation doesn't always work out. A case related in the conversation illustrates this: a relative with wealth built a perpetual mausoleum for his parents in his hometown. He died two years ago, his widow inherited, and among other decisions, she cremated both the deceased and her in-laws' remains and sold the mausoleum. Perpetuity, in practice, lasted as long as it took the widow to sign. The most expensive vestige can be the first to disappear.

In contrast, some argue that real legacy isn't bought: it's transmitted. Having children and striving in their upbringing, or viewing one's own work as a service that improves others' lives, leaves more mark than any physical work. The survival of genes, they say, is the only reasonable vehicle for most people. And some go further: in two generations no one remembers anyone, and it's not even needed. Famous figures in music and culture are being forgotten by entire generations who don't know who they were. If that happens to icons, imagine common mortals.

How long does the memory of a dead person last?

The conversation quickly turned to the arithmetic of oblivion. Collective memory has an expiration date, and the examples used are relentless: artists who were mass phenomena four decades ago and today are unknown to young people supposedly dedicated to music. Pop culture of the eighties and nineties has become recycled material, shortened and consumed at full estimulante ilegal, increasingly separated from the original creators. In that ecosystem, depth is a luxury and ignorance, the norm.

Some extract a liberating conclusion from this: if oblivion is inevitable, obsessing over transcending reveals certain immaturity. Earth is a speck of dust in an indifferent cosmos, and tomorrow a meteorite could fall erasing all traces of the species. No one will remember works because there won't be anyone to look at them. Under that prism, the only sensible project is to live and, if anything, prepare mentally for the end rather than furnishing the cemetery.

The will, sacraments, and the Christmas folder

The practical part of the matter also has its space. Some recommend having everything tied down for years: signed will, a folder with addresses and keys for accounts, investments and policies, and an annual family review to check everything is still valid and that the partner knows where each thing is. The date chosen by one participant for that review is between December 25 and 31. No romanticism: pure succession logistics.

At the opposite extreme, some don't want to leave any trace. Without children or heirs, the plan is to reach old age with intact faculties, rent until the end, and die with a zero balance. One participant even fantasizes about keeping cash inside a device connected to vital signs that activates a self-destruction mechanism upon death. Let the money burn and let nothing remain. It's the pyrotechnic version of "don't remember me."

What is inherited unwillingly: the State and children

Between monumental legacy and total disappearance there is a concern that appears several times: the wealth one accumulates that, lacking family, ends up in the hands of the State. For some, that bothers them more than death itself. Others, however, focus effort on tying everything down for their children, aiming for them to lack as little as possible. Preparation for death thus becomes a matter of asset planning, not transcendence.

And then there is the dimension not resolved by notaries: the spiritual. Some argue that priority is confession and receiving sacraments, or making a sincere act of contrition, and using the last years seeking holiness. Material security would come later. In that reading, life is a test of death, matter agonizes, and the spirit, once death is certified, returns home. The body belongs to no one, and furnishing the cemetery with pools and dolphin mosaics is a distraction.

The exact point where analysis gets stuck

The discussion always gets stuck in the same place: no one knows exactly what life is, but everyone agrees on what death is, organic matter decomposing. From there, each chooses their strategy. Some plant trees, others write books with their worldview so grandchildren know what this is about, others paint watercolors, and others simply try to be happy and learn to die. The only shared certainty is that oblivion arrives, sooner or later, and that the pool with your face at the bottom guarantees only one thing: that someone will have to pay to remove it.