“Everyone
must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a
book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a
garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere
to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you
planted, you’re there.”
“It
doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the
way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take
your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real
gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not
have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
excerpt from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
My mom died today. The most important thing to her was her husband (my Dad) of nearly 61 years, her four daughters and 11 grandchildren. We are what she leaves behind. Her spirit will dwell within each of us.
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