Leonard died.
Why has this upset me so much? He looked forward to his death as much as I do
to mine. And he had a good death—he lay
down on the couch for a nap, and didn’t wake up—unlike most of the deaths I’ve
witnessed, so why has this upset me so much?
Everything comes to an end.
It used to console me to know our end is not
the end, and the world will go on without us. But this
is no longer true.
Leonard died a day after Notre Dame burned. I’d been reading about it, and it left me depressed.
Victor Hugo made Notre Dame a symbol of France. Individual Frenchmen and women died, but Notre
Dame endured. Even Hitler, who ordered
the destruction of Coventry and Rheims, failed to burn Notre Dame. But indifference to
what Notre Dame represented succeeded where Hitler failed.
Leonard built something as great as Notre Dame:
a family of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He talked about them constantly, and lived
for them. But he died alone because they're as indifferent to their history as the French are to theirs.
We’ve all forgotten our past, and live only for the present because we know we have no future.
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