Farewell friends

[Narciss]

It is always very humbling to read such notes - the self-written post passing away letters. There have been others in hacker news, and they always make me think about life, about what matters to me the most and of course, what matters to others.

What struck me most about this one is that it spoke much more about the professional life then about the personal one. I would imagine that if I were to ever write one (which I won’t, cause I’ll live forever) it will be more on the side of outside work experiences.

Life is a beautiful gift, and it’s worth remembering that every day. Do what you love, do a lot of it, be kind to others, hug your cherished people, laugh, enjoy, smile…breathe.

I love you all, and hope you’re enjoying every moment of this incredible journey through the Universe on this floating space rock.

[JKCalhoun]

Old family photos do that for me too — make me think of both the brevity of life and the beauty it is just to have lived. To see the arc of those who have gone before you should be a sobering thought, but I also find a kind of comfort in a humbleness of knowing I too am just like them as they once were like I am now.

(In fact, something similar was a common headstone epitaph that a relative of mine who died over 100 years ago has on his own headstone.)

I wrote a bit about it here: https://engineersneedart.com/blog/camera/camera.html

[nine_k]

IMHO it's only natural. If I were to write such a letter, the public version would be about what the public might be interested in, such as professional life. A personal version would be sent to those who I personally know and care for, and not to the general public.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

For me, what I do is fairly closely linked with who I am. It's no longer unhealthy, but it used to be.

A lot of my legacy will be completely unheralded, and that's as it should be.

I do appreciate (but can't really say I "like") these posts.

Much better than the old "GBCW" (GoodBye Cruel World) posts that people used to post, when they rage-quit forums.

[thread_id]

> Life is a beautiful gift, and it’s worth remembering that every day. Do what you love, do a lot of it, be kind to others, hug your cherished people, laugh, enjoy, smile…breathe. > I love you all, and hope you’re enjoying every moment of this incredible journey through the Universe on this floating space rock.

Thank you... this is what it's all about - it's really as simple as that.

[vzaliva]

The reason may be that the intended audience was the readers of his professional blog. He propoably prepared a more personal one for close friends and family.

[monero-xmr]

So often people write about their children and the love they had seeing them grow up. Children have given me the most pleasure in life. Food for thought for those that are fully capable of having kids, but choose not to for whatever reason

[AbstractH24]

> It is always very humbling to read such notes - the self-written post passing away letters. There have been others in hacker news, and they always make me think about life, about what matters to me the most and of course, what matters to others.

Am I nuts or are they appearing more often recently on the front page of HN?

Not sure what to make of that. Are the increasingly common thing to do for the terminally ill? Are people more attracted up voting them?

[hckrnrd]

> What struck me most about this one is that it spoke much more about the professional life then about the personal one.

I was thinking the same thing when reading the man’s reflection focused so much on his personal accolades and so little on what David Brooks calls “eulogy values.” But to each their own.

[fellowniusmonk]

I often think of Speaker for the Dead.

My parents died just as I was entering adulthood many years ago. They were both kind/accidental iconoclasts with lives that were unusual to the tune of 1 in a billion, or really, discretely unique, like all people perhaps. They bridged eras, continents, cultural inertias, familial blendings.

I lost so much... everything really, when they died. I have so many questions I forgot to ask, so many things I forgot to write down.

People are important. Even people who go unnoticed can have weird and niche insights.

I think of ImageNet. People are far more important and their lives and insights far less uniform. We miss much by letting all these people go without hearing them, without trying to understand them.

[JKCalhoun]

Al you can do it record what you recall about your parents — and record things about yourself for future generations.

[re]

Some additional context about the author:

> Jonathan Clements founded HumbleDollar at year-end 2016. Earlier in his career, he spent almost 20 years at The Wall Street Journal, where he was the newspaper's personal finance columnist, and six years at Citigroup, where he was director of financial education for the bank's U.S. wealth management arm. He was also the author of a fistful of personal finance books, including My Money Journey and How to Think About Money.

* https://humbledollar.com/about/jonathan-clements/

* A Money Guru Bet Big on a Very Long Life. Then He Got Cancer. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/13/your-money/jonathan-cleme...

* https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/1npe...

* Tributes to Jonathan Clements https://humbledollar.com/2025/09/tributes-to-jonathan-clemen...

* Best of Jonathan’s HumbleDollar Posts https://humbledollar.com/2025/09/best-of-jonathans-humbledol...

* Choosing Happiness https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32804468 (3 years ago, 101 comments)

[AfterHIA]

I'm suffering from a serious lung illness that might, "take me out of the game" and honestly it's so cathartic to read stuff like this. You get a sense that death is just another milestone. It isn't degrading. I hope as an atheist that it is, "the end" in the Buddhist sense when I go.

I'm so tired and angry. I miss the calm of the evening. I don't miss my friends. I never fell in love and I don't regret it. Life is worth losing.

[mbac32768]

This hurts my heart to read.

I hope you find peace soon.

[silexia]

Having a wife and kids is the purpose and meaning of life. Same as it is for every other biological creature. Miss out on that, and life is worth losing.

[ArcHound]

Good luck anon. I think you've nailed it in the last sentence.

For me it was liberating to realize that my life isn't that special and it's not a huge tragedy to lose it. I'll do what I can while I am here. Not even gods can ask me for more. And death doesn't take away all the things I did in the meantime.

[Noumenon72]

I learned a lot about investing and index funds from his Getting Going column. A shame that he didn't get to retire on all of his frugally invested money. He was 62.

[yakshaving_jgt]

The thought of this kind of thing makes me think I should just go buy that Aston Martin tomorrow.

[andrewinardeer]

How would one employ a dead man's switch to post a blog entry like this?

Are there any services you would recommend?

[saagarjha]

I prefer the service known as “your family and friends”.

[uncletoxa]

Just a scheduled post that you postpone while you're alive.

[jaymzcampbell]

It's not an answer to this, but tangentially related as we had a similar conversation at work very recently. Not many people know about Google and Apple's inactive account manager setup (https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en). If you've not already done this I'd highly recommend adding your spouse/kin/best mate etc as a contact. I set this up to transfer over access to my Google Drive to my wife if I've been inactive for some period. We have separate offline docs around keys and access, but if the worst happened, then eventually she'll get a message with instructions on decrypting and accessing the critical info she needs. A lot of my (tech savvy) co-workers had no idea this was a thing.

[Brajeshwar]

If you can trust Github enough, then Github Workflow that runs a schedule build everyday should be able to do it. Have a future date post (built-in with Github Pages), say, a month ahead of now. Every now and then, you as long as you are alive, increase the month.

[Intermernet]

I wrote something that does this (amongst other things) ages ago when I was learning Go. https://github.com/intermernet/watchdog

[kwar13]

Money seems like everything until you realize there is an end to all of this.

[prasadjoglekar]

Like everything, there's a balance. I hope his savings help his wife thru the rest of her life and any children and grandchildren.

Not having it most certainly results in suffering and consequently different memories. Money won't buy happiness but it sure eases a lot of the petty sadness.

[susiecambria]

Farewell notes offer an interesting peak into the world of another and are so much more engaging, honest, and grounded than the paid obits which commonly mention how the deceased was beloved by everyone.

I got a sense of Jonathan while reading his farewell note. And the note challenges me to do and be better. RIP Jonathan.

[OhMeadhbh]

Nobody gets out of here alive, but that's a great goodbye note. I especially liked one of the articles linked to by the one posted here: https://humbledollar.com/2024/06/the-c-word/

[joemazerino]

Followed humble dollar during my stint in personal investing. There was a revival of personal blogs pitching index funds alongside books like The Wealthy Barber.

Its sad and scary to see just how fast he died from cancer. Also bewildering he stopped smoking at 27.

All in all, RIP.

[gerdesj]

What a lovely note. Very reminiscent of the old school Chrimbo catch up letters but with the hefty twist ("Soz, going to have to bugger off now - cheers!)

I (Jon) lived in Twikkers too, a few years later than this Jon was born there.

Rest in peace mate.

[nothrowaways]

RIP

[mvcosta91]

Viveu jovem e morreu livre

[dimgl]

RIP

[Supermancho]

"relatively young age" - I've only had my one and I won't make it to 60 due to my conditions. I've seen good friends die earlier. Must be nice to think that's young, but it feels strangely out of place.

[bcraven]

I have to admit I don't understand the epitaph "Family • Readers • Words"

Is it a reference to something?

[saagarjha]

Was the description a few lines down helpful?