July 4, 2024
I haven’t updated this journal since before Marina’s arrival to Thailand in early April. No special reason other than the lack of motivation. As I wrote in the last post, for Marina’s vacation we rented a house in Kho Samui and drove there with Natalia and Woland — a 12 hours journey. We had a good time doing what we do while on vacation at the beach but the island is overdeveloped and has lost its charm. Marina went back to San Diego on April 7 stopping in Paris to visit her mother. She missed Sofia who was flying into Thailand as she was flying out. With Sofia the trip was to Hua Hin, much closer to Bangkok and with similar beaches, with had the same routines. She went back to Paris on the 19th and I started a four-weeks trip to Morocco (April 20-26), Ivory Coast (April 27-30), Tunisia (May 1st-10th), and France (May 11-21st). The France portion was a short vacation with Natalia through the cities of Paris, Lyon, and Avignon; she prefers old, in-land, towns to modern towns by the beach. When I came back to Thailand I was hoping to stay until the beginning of July finishing a couple of papers I was immersed on but it didn’t happen.
On June 15 I flew to Ecuador to spend some time with my mother whose life is coming to an end, faster than expected. She has been fighting cancer for the last eights years and somehow I came to believe in her immortality. But a few weeks ago, abruptly, she entered what seems to be the final phase of the disease. She stopped eating, her mind became confused, and she could no longer hold a conversation, read or watch a movie. She is not in pain because of the medication she takes, but she is restless, more so here by the beach where she has more oxygen and therefore more energy.
When I first saw her in Quito, a city at 2,850 meters of altitude (9,350 feet), she was spending most of her days in bed. We thought it would be a good idea if she could spend her last days close to the ocean and drove her to Casa Blanca under a heavy dose of painkillers and anxiolytics. Here she regained strength and started walking again, but her anxiety and restlessness have worsened. She can’t stay seated or in bed for more than a few minutes. Like my one-year-old nephew, David, who is also here and learning to crawl, she needs constant supervision to make sure she doesn’t fall.
We all get used to death creeping around. Like me, Marina and Sofia were shaken when they first saw my mother, skin and bones moving swiftly through space and time, eyes wide opened fixing a single point as if possessed. But then we find ourselves dealing with our own lives. We spend time with her, try to help, hope death will be painless, but are no longer concerned about the inevitable. We feel sadness but we are not in despair. I read somewhere that in the scale of pain and sorrow the highest level is losing a child, followed by the loss of your partner/spouse. Then comes the loss of a job and only after the loss of your parents. I guess it makes evolutionary sense.
It is only by coincidence that on my way here I finished reading the book Why We Die by Venmo Ramakrishnan a Nobel Prize winner. A very good book about what we know and can do about aging. The conclusion, it’s very unlikely that we will see a change in the maximum life-span of humans any time soon. Some charlatans argue that the person who will live past 150 years has already been born but there is no science behind the claim. The author also reminds us that the health status of super-centenarians is pretty bad. For now, the things we can do to live longer and stay healthier during old-age are to exercise, stay intellectually stimulated (read, solve mathematical problems, play chess), and eat little.
In the mean time life goes on. Regardless of how things evolve here on May 10 Marina, Sofia, and I are flying to Cartagena to spend some time with BEHEMOTH. Natalia is join us there…
Sailing to the Pacific 