You only live once, but you die twice

“Some day…there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That’s when I will be truly dead – when I exist in no one’s memory.”¹

~Irvin Yalom

The idea exists that we die twice.² The first death being the physical death of our body, when our heart stops beating, and the second being the last time someone says our name. Irvin Yalom takes this thought experiment one step further, positing that our final death is the last time a person thinks of us.

Part of humans’ difficulty in dealing with the death of another, whether it be someone close to us or a tragedy we hear about in the news, is that the death of others reminds us of our own inevitable death. Any type of death is a confrontation with our own mortality, even if just for a split second, before our brain refocuses our attention on less threatening matters.

Consciously and subconsciously, we seek to extend our lives past the point of physical death by striving for symbolic immortality. Simply put, we want to be remembered when we’re gone. As Yalom posits, we’re not truly dead if we’re alive in someone’s memory. In this case, we can think of a multitude of people who have died, and are very much alive in this world:

Aristotle celebrated his 2,409th birthday this year.

Shanidar Z turned 75,000-years-old in 2025.

Elvis turned 90 this year.

We strive to be remembered by achieving fame, Instagram or otherwise, accomplishing great things that will have a lasting impact on humanity, creating art that will outlive our presence on earth, and by raising progeny who will carry on our names, DNA, traditions, and passions.

There is so much we do during our lives intended to overcome our mortal nature, endeavors that will keep our names on people’s lips and in people’s minds far into a future where we cannot go. Just as we strive for a sense of permanency in our ephemeral lives, cultivating meaning and purpose in what we do, we want the same for those we love, especially after they’re gone.

Mini refresher course: Grief is a reaction to a loss, mourning is the outward expression of grief.

We can’t always choose our reaction to a loss.

Leyla Kazim

shared the story of a man becoming violently ill upon receiving news of a friend dying. This illustrates the uncontrollable, reactive nature of grief. But mourning, that we can choose with a great amount of autonomy.

Part of the way we mourn is by remembering. In how we remember, we’re strengthening our connection with the person who died, establishing their memory as a new type of presence in our lives, and in the world.

This leads us to establish foundations, non-profits, and scholarships to further the work or hobbies a loved one was passionate about. We commission memorials as simple as a grave marker and as grand as the Taj Mahal, or even devote our entire lives to a cause, such as becoming a cancer researcher if your loved one died of leukemia.

In the 2010 film “The Way,” a young man sets out to walk the El camino de Santiago, a historic pilgrimage through France, Portugal, and Spain. The man dies early on in his journey, and his estranged father is summoned to collect his body. In an act of mourning and remembrance, the father decides to have his son cremated and finishes the pilgrimage, scattering his son’s ashes along the way. The camino claimed his first death, but it couldn’t take his second.

1. Love’s Executioner by Irvin Yalom

2. First credited to the ancient Egyptians, then to Irvin Yalom, to Banksy, and others.