Christopher S. Mulvaney,

Attorney and Counselor-at-Law

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THIS WEBSITE INCLUDES GENERAL INFORMATION & THE OPINIONS OF CHRISTOPHER S. MULVANEY. IT IS INTENDED TO STIMULATE A BASIS FOR QUESTIONS RELATED TO YOUR PARTICULAR FACTUAL CIRCUMSTANCES — BEFORE YOU ACT.  THIS WEBSITE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE LEGAL ADVICE. IF YOU WANT LEGAL ADVICE, PLEASE MAKE A ZOOM APPOINTMENT TO SPEAK WITH ME.

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Gonzaga University School of Law – Spokane, Washington – Class of 2002 – Cum Laude The Latin phrase “Deo patriae, scientiis, artibus” translates to “For God and country through sciences and arts”.  The initials A.M.D.G. on the seal of Gonzaga Law School stand for Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, which is Latin for “For the Greater Glory of God” the Motto of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits): a Catholic religious order founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola.

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“We will either find a way, or make one.”
– Hannibal

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My most recent experience with death was the death of my father, Larry (Lawrence Marston Garges M.D. Capt. U.S.N. (Retired) on December 02, 2024 at age 83.

My mom, Kathy is 85 and still living.

Previously I have lost the following people who were close to me: my Godson Christopher Maurice Noonan (2017),

my family friends Dick & Rosemary DeKlotz (2014),

my father-in-law, Roger Allshouse (2010),

my friend Dick Rasmussen (2000),

my Aunt Dixie Mulvaney (2000), my friend Joanne Rasmussen (2001),

(my mom, Kathy is on the right)

my grandmother, Mimi (Kay Mulvaney) (1991),

my grandfather, Papa (Jack Mulvaney) (1978).

Here is the pocketwatch and rosary I got from Papa in 1978 after he died.

That is 10 people.

I talk about death every day as an estate planning attorney. I try to take what I learned from my mother who cared for dying cancer patients for decades as a nurse and apply it to my work helping people to focus on what is important and forget what is not and have a good death.

More than two thirds of people don’t want to think about death, and don’t do any estate planning. The consequences on relationships of surviving loved ones can be dire.

I congratulate my clients on being in the minority of people concerned about their surviving spouse, children and other family and friends.

I think that some mortality awareness or mortality salience is a good thing.

Too much can be depressing, but some awareness can make people kinder and more grateful and to live more in tune with communicating with and caring for the people they value most in the world.

To be aware of one’s death is to be selfless, literally. One’s self no longer exists, so the self of the deceased has no needs, wants, desires, grudges, or complaints. The survivor’s go on with the memories of the deceased person.

Thinking only of others without concern for yourself is altruism. Thinking about death makes people a little more altruistic because they are not thinking about themselves (unless you buy into an afterlife in which the soul is in heaven, hell or purgatory. In that case you are still thinking about yourself.)

That is one reason why Buddhism has appeal to me. If there is no God, no soul, so self, no heaven, no hell, no purgatory, then thinking about only others is more possible. Buddhism gets all distractions out of the way.

Thinking about how you want to be remembered, your legacy if you will can be a good thing. When I saw the rioters on January 6th, I couldn’t help but think they were not thinking about their legacies. Otherwise they would have made better choices. Nobody would want their grandchildren to ask why did grandpa do that and get sent to Federal Prison.

I think that a brave thing to do is contemplate the possibility that the Buddhists are correct and that there is nothing independent of the body after death other than the effects one had during life including the memories of the survivors.

The atoms in the body are endlessly recycled no matter if you bury or fire cremate or water cremate or human compost. The atoms have been many other things before and will be many more things in the future.

Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it only changes form. Matter is the closest thing we have to infinite. If something has no beginning and no end, that is the definition of infinity. There is no beyond, despite what Buzz Lightyear says.

The effects of a person’s life on the Earth itself, animals, plants, air, water, and fellow human beings is no small thing no matter how modestly a person lives. Each person’s life has incalcuable effects.

Each person requires the entirety of the rest of the universe and the history of the universe up to that point to exist.

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,  And grow for ever and for ever. from The Princess: The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls By Alfred, Lord Tennyson How can anyone know what the effect of anyone’s life will be?

If the effects of living are in focus, then overconsumption becomes a highly relevant issue because it is a negative effect that is unknowable on future generations.

Human caused climate change is such an effect. Extinction of species is such an effect. The use of non-renewable resources generally, but specifically including oil, gas, and coal along with other mined metals and minerals is such an effect.

Future generations of humans will have less non-renewables, fewer species, and more fires, floods, hurricanes, sea level rise and other effects of climate change.

All of the animals that were killed to feed a person over a lifetime and all of the work, water and land to grow the feed for the animals have an effect on future generations.

At a macro level, the world appears to be gaining understanding that the way we currently live is not viable, meaning it cannot continue. As Herb Cohen famously said, “if something cannot continue forever, it will stop.”

I read a book about the use of resources that said in the future all energy sources will be renewable because we will have exhausted all non-renewable sources. That future is a certainty, the questions are when will it happen, and what will we do in the meantime.

Growing renewable energy sources is the only logical rational approach to diminishing non-renewables. Anything else would be suicidal.

When everything that can be mined from the Earth has been mined from the Earth, then everything will be recycled and renewable. So, learning how to recycle better now is again the only logical rational choice of a prudent non-suicidal person.

There doesn’t have to be an afterlife for life to me meaningful. The relationships we form with our fellow human beings, and showing them and future generations with our actions that we care about them and the opportunities they have is meaningful. The only thing we know of that goes on forever is Matter. Everything is changing states of Matter. Nothing is forever.

I remember when I studies astronomy and learned about the life cycle of the Star that is our Sun. In a known universe that is about 13.5 billion years old, our Star was formed about 5 billion years ago and has about 5 billion years worth of fuel left to burn before it dies.

When the Sun dies there will be no gravity holding the planets in their orbits, and no light or heat or growth. Everything will die. The song lyric that nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky is a nice thought, but it not scientifically correct.

It seems strange to measure the age of the universe in units that are relative to our Sun and the Earth which didn’t exist for over 8 billion years after the Big Bang. Eventually, there will be no Sun and no Earth and no solar system and no Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

Does that make what happens on Earth meaningless? I don’t think so. We used to be able to say, “What happens on Earth stays on Earth,” but no anymore.

We sent human beings to our Moon. We have sent probes to photograph Mars and out of our solar system.

The Webb Telescope brings us fantastic images of galaxies and stars many light years away. Light travels at about 186,000 miles per second, which means light can circumnavigate the equator about 7.5 times in one second. One ten thousandth the speed of light is about 18.6 miles per second, which is about 66,960 miles per hour. The fastest plan in the world broke Mach 9.6, which is 7,366 miles per hour.

That is why it is such cringe at the stupidity of the Millenium Falcon breaking light speed in Star Wars.

Flowers don’t last forever and that makes them more beautiful. People are the same. Part of everyone is forever. It is the infinitely recycling atoms. Everything else is a more or less temporary change in form. Some stars last for billions of years, a May Fly lasts only for a day. The atoms are the same.

People have a hard time imagining the non-existence of the self. It is one of those things where “you can’t get there from here.”

An Afterlife assumes the existence of a self after death to be either rewarded in heaven or punished in hell. If there is no immortal self then what we do as human beings to each other and to the Earth and the plants and animals on it matters more than it would with an Afterlife.

An Afterlife makes renewable energy, recycling and increased re-use, & reduced consumption, seem less important than the eternal Afterlife. If this is all there is, then there isn’t anything more important than how we treat each other and all life and resources that surround us.

If there is no self, then the reward and punishment can’t be personal to you because there is no you.

It is the body of all humans who have lived, are living, and will live that matters. Individuals are like cells in the body. They all play a part and they all have the genetic instructions for the whole body, but any one cell is not a whole body.

The you that we spend so much time thinking about is a temporary illusion. It is there and then it is gone. It can be beautiful and moving. A life can be a great work of art, but there is nothing permanent about you other than the atoms that comprise you.

Does that mean that people can do whatever they want and it doesn’t matter? I don’t think so.

There are other more important reasons for doing things than hopes for reward or fear of punishment. Those things are external. Deciding what kind of person you want to be, and what kind of society you want to live in, and actively working to make what you value reality is meaningful regardless of whether anyone else appreciates or criticizes it.

John Paul Sartre’s “Hell is other people†describes an existence existing at the mercy of the Other, the Other’s judgements, and the Other’s accusing gaze. It is hell, tormenting, and unbearable to be unable to escape the Other’s look that objectifies and, in its objectifying, tortures.

In thinking about this I realized that a reason for the torment is seeing in another the deepest fears and despised qualities of one’s ephemeral self. Although fleeting the self can bear a heavy burden while it exists. The self bears the weight of the whole world on its shoulders because at some level the self believes it is all that there is, and that others are mirrors reflecting back what the self knows about itself, but does not wish to be reminded.

When I heard that my father, Larry, passed away, I thought of the things that bothered me about him being gone. When I thought about why these things bothered me it became clear that the things I don’t like about myself that I saw in him were the things that bothered me the most. I felt some relief that there would never again be any Judgment or criticism from Larry.

I think about the times when I am Judgmental and critical. I don’t like that about myself and do try not to be that way. My mother, Kathy, as a nurse at the VA hospital, did not judge the veterans whose health was often worse because of their excessive drinking and smoking and lack of care of themselves. Kathy took care of the veterans and didn’t make them feel any shame.

I try to do that with my bankruptcy clients in particular who have often made poor financial decisions. It doesn’t matter what has happened in the past, the important thing is to get the fresh start and to use it well.

I tell clients their situation is like a Chess game that has been played part way through. You can’t do anything about the previous moves, just study the board and analyze where the pieces are (not where you want them to be) and what is the best next move and keep doing that. Making the best decision you can under the circumstances builds self-esteem no matter how difficult the situation.

Larry was a medical doctor who practiced solo. Larry was not very good with money and underperformed financially. He made an above average income because he was an M.D., so compared to the general public he was doing well, but compared to other doctors his age who did as well as he did in school, he probably made half what the best performers did.

This bothered me about Larry for some reason. Now, I know the reason. I am a lawyer with a solo practice. I make above average income compared to the general public, but compared to other 56 year old lawyers who graduated in the top 20% of their class, I probably make half of what the best performers do.

Thankfully there are differences between us amongst the similarities in areas that are important to me. Larry was married 4 times. The second wife was 14 years younger. It bothered me that Larry married 4 times, and I wondered what that meant for me. I have been with my wife Sara for over 20 years, and I feel very grateful for that. Sara happens to be 14 years younger than I am.

The psychology of death is a complex topic that includes how people react to death and dying, and the psychological conditions that may be involved. Some key concepts in the psychology of death include: 

The fear of death is so great that it may be buried deep in the subconscious.

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages can apply to both the experience of terminal illness and the loss of a loved one. However, not everyone experiences all of the stages, and the order in which they occur can vary. 

Psychic death is when someone begins to accept death and withdraw from others. This can happen before physiological death, and can even bring death closer. 

Some psychologists believe that denial of death is a psychological condition that may be a survival mechanism to prevent death from happening. Others believe that not facing death until the end can be an adaptive coping mechanism. 

Even if there is no afterlife, that does not mean that there isn’t a spiritual dimension to life. There must be much more going on than we can see. There is no reason to suspect that the human mind is capable of understanding everything.

Philosophers have for centuries pondered the limits of our understanding, particularly the limits of thinking in language symbols. The symbols are limited and limit what can be thought about and how reality is considered and understood.

Visible light is only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Humans cannot see most forms of radiation. That is part of why the Webb pictures are so beautiful. They are enhanced with colors based on infrared cameras detecting what we cannot see. It stands to reason, that there is much else that we cannot experience directly or even understand if we did.

We intuitively know this as humans. I think that is why there is lore about more advanced alien civilizations and that is part of why we invented an an knowing, all powerful, everlasting being. Just because you invent something doesn’t mean it did not exist prior to inventing it. Just like it is possible to frame a guilty person. The framing doesn’t prove innocence any more than invention proves previous non-existence of the invention.

Death is not empty because it contains every thought, action, dream, ambition, fear & love of every human being who has ever lived. The totality of the experience of all life resides in death, and grows with each new addition every moment of every day.

Death is the record of everything that has ever happened that cannot be destroyed. Death, like Matter, cannot be created or destroyed, it only changes form depending upon the form of life. Death & Matter are Forever. Some say Taxes, but that may be aspirational on the part of Government.

Jonne Donne said “No Man is an Island.” If we as humans lived that connection with each other and with the Earth and all life on Earth, the only place we know life exists, that has meaning in the absence of God, an Afterlife, a Soul (Eternal Self), Heaven & Hell.

Caring action about everyone who has ever lived, everyone who is living, and everyone who will live is participation in the grandeur and mystery of life. Meaning as sense, significance, and context is found in such participation, loving kindness, and involvement.

To do no harm, to do one’s best, to make a positive difference in the lives of others, to be safe, healthy, at ease and happy doing good in the World makes sense, is significant, and gives context to our lives.

Paradoxically, humans are at our best when we are aware of our mortality and at the same time forget it, and focus completely on the here and now. If we are focused on the Afterlife, we are distracted from this life.

Being fully present, aware, and attuned in this life is prudent regardless of whether there is an Afterlife because certainly that way of being improves the Afterlife and if there is no Afterlife, then being that way improves living on Earth.

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