A Letter to my Son by Liz Jensen

On the plane to South Africa, where Iggy Fox died, his mother Liz Jensen wrote him this letter.

Darling Raph

You were a force of nature, and now you are a new kind of force: you are chlorophyll, you are water, you are an ants’ nest, you are moss on a stone, a bird’s feather, a wolf’s paw print, a tiger, a tree, a praying mantis, a stingray, a squirrel. You are the sky and the sea and the forests and the mountains and the marshes and the deserts and everything in between. With your scientist’s and your writer’s eye, I think that’s how you’d see it.

You didn’t believe in heaven because you knew heaven was here on Earth. You saw it clearly and you helped others see it.

I feel my life is over because your life – your physical life, your life in that multiply tattooed and apparently healthy young body – is over. But you wouldn’t want me or anyone else to think that.

I know -so deeply and so strongly that you could be sitting next to me holding my hand and telling me this, that sadness and grief are part of the human cycle and that nobody is immune. And that Homo sapiens is amazing and inventive and joyful as well as selfish and destructive. And that our natural urge to do the right thing is what we must hang on to – and what must triumph – if our civilisation is to remain decent and our world worth living in.

I will forever see you in the kindness of strangers, in the comradeship of people with a common cause, and in the passion of our fellow activists. You are with us now just as you are with all those honoured to have a place in that big generous heart of yours, a heart that failed far far too soon.

I feel grateful for your spirit and your life, and proud that between us your father and I gave you life, that we met and created two remarkable lives in you and your brother – and that between us we all – family, friends, colleagues, fellow activists – all played a part in contributing to the extraordinary young man you are.

Yes, are.

I could say were but I am not ready for that. Who will ever be ready for the past tense when your life was all about now and about the future, about saving that future for the planet and its nonhuman and human inhabitants and its ecosystems?

In your 25 years as a son, brother, cousin, nephew, partner, friend, crazy dancer, magpie, friend, activist, cool dude, maker of kickass flapjacks – you taught us all so much. And what you taught us will take on its own life Inside us. And so you will live on.

Your first and most beloved video as a two year old was an Attenborough documentary about Architeuthis, known at home as Raph’s Giant Squid Video, Whenever you were upset – and you were upset a lot -we’d calm you down by sitting you on the sofa with the scary Giant Squid Video. You watched it a thousand times, utterly mesmerised by those monsters of the deep. They spoke to you – and on a visceral level they speak to all of us. You knew very young that we are nature and nature is us.

You were always fascinated by the human body and its weirdnesses and it seemed for a while you’d study medicine – you were never afraid of blood, always ready to check a pulse or remove a splinter, fascinated by your own wounds and the wounds of others – actually the only child I ever knew who was always keen to visit the dentist, out of sheer interest –

But it was wildlife biology you chose. It was your first and most abiding passion. It was lucky to have you and it will be the lesser for losing such a brilliant mind. You’d have done great things. And with your work in XR and The Wildwork project you had already begun that work.

You had a dream once when you were about eight of nine. I don’t mean the kind of Big Dream you went on to have in XR and The Wildwork – but an actual dream, in the night. It struck me forcefully – as any parent would be struck. In it, you said, you had to break the news to me and your father that you had an incurable disease and you were dying. In this dream we were out of our minds with shock and grief but you comforted us. Your dream wasn’t about you: it was all about you trying to give us solace.

We need your solace now – all of us. The memory of how thoughtful and solicitous you were to those in distress comforts me now in a time when it’s hard to believe I will ever find peace again in this world.

You loved this this unique planet of ours that has given us all so much – and from which we took so much -so carelessly and so selfishly – as if it were as disposable as so many other things in our lives – as if there there were plenty more to spare, plenty more where that came from.

But we only have one planet and we had only one you. And By “we” I mean all of us. Because Raphael – call him Iggy, call him whatever you called him – he didn’t just have us as his family. His family was -and is- global , and it’s growing. He was so proud to be part of XR. It consumed him and he brought all his passion and ingenuousness and energy to it, and to his Wildwork project.

He threw himself into all he did with the energy of five people. Sometimes ten.

He appreciated quiet contemplation – especially in nature -but he also loved drama: it energised him.

When he was born people asked me who does your new baby look like? And I said in all honesty he doesn’t look like anyone or anything I know – he looks like something a creature From another planet. An extraordinary beautiful alien from outer space.

And back to outer space you go. Or not – back, rather, to this Earth. Your atoms will live on. Space is the expensive escape fantasy of plutocrats. But Earth is real. And it needs us more than ever. Your spirit and your legacy will live on in all who you inspired. You were a joyous, crazy gift to all of us.

You seemed to have so much more passionate, vivid life ahead of you –

We all believed you would go far -so far . you had so many projects. And they weren’t just vague dreams. They were big concrete important plans – they were plans on the scale we need. Let’s honour that.

Lets cherish all that you said and did and all you were. Let’s keep imagining what you would say if you could speak to us now. I know you’d want us to comfort us, and that you’d want us to keep fighting on behalf of the great organism that nurtures and sustains us all. And we will carry your love of life with us into the days, months and years ahead.

When he died, among his many projects Raph/Iggy was preparing his legal defence for vandalising the Brazilian Embassy in London. He was due to defend himself in court. He’d been effectively charged with the crime of defending the Amazon rainforest – the lungs of the planet. Just think about that for a moment. The lungs of the planet were on fire and it was considered an illegal act to draw attention to it. In fact he and others in XR were regarded in a now notoriously shameful document as being borderline terrorists. Like many climate activists he was prepared to go to jail for his belief that we owe it to the future to do all we can to protect and defend this beautiful Earth from those who are hastening its collapse.

He knew right from wrong.

So why don’t those who govern us? Let’s keep asking them. Let’s keep calling them out. Let’s keep up the pressure.

I’m writing this from the front line of personal grief. But part of grief is rage – and I intend to hold on to that rage as firmly as I intend to hold on to the memory of the extraordinary comet that lived among us for a while. There are so many paths he could have chosen. He could have been anything – but he chose to do this and to be this. he chose life: the life of the planet, its ecosystems, its wildlife and its future generations, human and nonhuman.

This is an indescribable loss. The pain feels too great to bear: a huge, aching void. But think of what he’d want. Let’s not just mourn him. Let’s do more. Lets do what he would say if he were here now: keep on. Let’s keep acting for justice for wildlife, for ecosystems, for indigenous people, for all those already suffering the devastation wrought by a fossil heated world.

Let’s celebrate him, with love and rage in our hearts : love for him and for this planet , rage against the injustices and damage wrought by its elected and non elected leaders.

But mostly, love.

Let’s cherish his memory and may the spirit of that amazing, charismatic and vivid young presence live on in all of us and guide us through all that’s to come.

With his example in mind, let’s shape the future.