I’ve been questioning the concept of forever since that close up of Squint mouthing the word slowly into a flashlight during that scene from The Sandlot. Something about his ominous tone made for-EV-orrr seem more like The End. Which honestly makes way more sense now than it ever did back then. If time is a flat circle, forever is the end. And the beginning. Cuz that’s how circles work.

forever | fəˈrevər, fôˈrevər |
adverb
1 for all future time; for always: she would love him forever | a way of life about to disappear forever
– a very long time (used hyperbolically): it took forever to get a passport.
– used in slogans of support after the name of something or someone: Elvis Forever!
2 continually: they are forever on the move

A few weeks ago while scrolling The Morning newsletter from the New York Times, I accidentally discovered Tom Brady cloned his dog, according to my new favorite tiny section called Today’s Number. It’s like the number of the day in Sesame Street, but for adults, and I always want to know what it is.

Doesn’t the whole idea take away from the individuality of your “beloved” pet? Make him…less special? If you can just replace him? B questioned after I read Today’s Number aloud in explanation of my outburst declaring I WOULD NEVER CLONE YOU, FREDDIE!

I chose not to read the actual article, the whole thing kinda grossed me out. That’s pretty much how I feel about most headlines these days. Whatever the opposite of click-bait is: I do not want to know more.

But ooof. What a be-TRAY–al. Sorry Tom Brady’s OG pet. And Paris Hilton’s. AND Barbra Streisand? In case you were wondering what too much money looks like…

Memories can’t be cloned. Experiences can’t be transferred. Personalities don’t arrive, they develop, finely contoured by memories and colored with experiences over time. What exactly are you getting with a cloned pet, except a vessel? A carbon copy. An imposter with no choice. A visual version of something that may even end up goring you like Second Chance (cloned from Chance, duh) the “beloved” Brahman show bull gored his owner, Ralph Fisher. Twice. You should probably fact check more of the things you read in the wild, but I promise this one is true.

Freddie is such a special gremlin because he is the only Fred. And there will never be another Fred, not for me. Because I will never entirely be the Me I was the day I patiently coaxed him out of his cage, luring him into the way too loud, way too bright high school gymnasium with snacks he barely registered. He will never be that same Fred, curled tightly against the metal wires, covering his face with his tail, full of all those fears acquired in his short existence, quirks I learned to adore, each one making Fred, Fred. Those time-stamped versions of ourselves grew together, for each other, tidbits of time woven into a dance, shaping our relationship, our partnership, our loyalty. Time. How do you replicate that? Why on earth would you want to?

If cloning a pet is wild, restoring extinct animals via genetic engineering is straight-up bonkers. Like, why? What is the actual point? To prove we can do it? Someone must have paused to question how these creatures were forced into extinction in the first place. Life (or something like it) slowly phased them out. Soft deleted them. boop. You know that old mosquito theory? Why we haven’t, with all our scientific powers, at least tried to get rid of those pointless nuisances? Because we don’t actually know the the immense butterfly effect eliminating one piddly pest might have on entire ecosystems. 

If we’re too chicken to flick a pest over the line of extinction because unknown chaos may ensue, how are we so cool with resurrecting ancient creatures from their crypts? Like some History Channel version of Pet Cemetery brought to you by National Geographic with a YouTube twist: torture on display. You thought your first round was a death march…try surviving this world. Mwahahahhahhhahaaaaa. 

Anyway. I’m gonna make the bold claim that pet cloners and folks heavily invested in living forever probably have large overlaps in their Venn diagrams. Survival of the richest. I mean it’s not like they’re out there wishing eternal life for everyone, that would be ridiculous. Where would we even put them? All these people? Not to mention their garbage. Nah, this is a pay to play kind of game.

Preservation. The act of keeping something intact. Lands. Foods. Culture. Religion. Homes. Historical buildings. Our bodies. Youth. Natural resources. Ways of life. Kind of a wild concept when you dig too deep. I mean, isn’t preservation in direct conflict with Change, life’s only constant? And perhaps time itself? Beginnings, middles, ends? The circle of life. Annnnd we’re back to circles. This is how you get dizzy.

I love a good rabbit hole, but I’ve stopped trying to make things make sense. Some things just don’t. Maybe they’re not supposed to. Maybe things are meant to get more fuzzy the harder you focus. I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers, I don’t want them. Time is what you make of it and forever sounds exhausting.

Last summer in the pines, camped next to Rabbi T’s village of merry travelers, I was invited to a closing ceremony of sorts. I brought my awkward flare to a circle of people who came together intentionally to collectively acknowledge the lovely time we just shared, but also to be reminded that what really makes these moments so special, is all the life lived in between. How does one measure loveliness without a scale?

And as we go back to our lives, back to the in-between, to make space for our next magical adventure we carry the spirit forward, but let the moment go.