As you near the end of your road, and a final twilight draws its heavy curtain across the window of your soul, you wonder what memories will carry you into the dim-lit reaches of immortality.
Perhaps you will be remembered for your fine selection of breads. You always took pride in that, and your guests often remarked on it. Crusty loaves with a soft crumb, savory with rosemary and perfect for dipping in oil and herbs. Sweet rolls that melt in your mouth even before the butter. Tart, hearty sourdough bowls full of steaming soups. Crisp breadsticks almost forgotten in the heat of a lively debate across the table, then remembered fondly before bed in place of an embarrassing gaffe.
Perhaps you will be remembered for your oratory. The speeches you used to make! You could quell a riot with a few well-chosen words, your clear voice cutting across the angry to fill their hearts with shame. You roused men and women to swell their better selves, and you gave children lessons that would shape them forever. You used words that everyone used, but somehow in your mouth they were stronger. They carried the weight of meaning not like porters worn down from years of heavy labor, but like proud athletes in the prime of their skill and vigor.
Perhaps you will be remembered for your service to others. On the night of the great fire, you let seven families stay in your home. Every weekend you volunteered at the humane society to help abused and neglected pets, and no matter how it broke your heart you came back every week to do your part. You were a tireless advocate for the orphaned and the homeless. Your friendship was as sure as the tide and more priceless than gems.
Perhaps you will be remembered as a great lover. You did not have a vulgar excess of partners, but rumors of your exploits made many men and women look at you admiringly. You cherished every inch of your lovers’ bodies, treating your lovemaking like the most profound worship. Or you took them like a savage storm pounding the shore with wave after relentless wave. You always knew with perfect certainty what they needed, what their hearts and bodies craved most in the soft intimate dark. And you always gave it generously with neither hesitation nor anxiety.
Perhaps you will be remembered for your fine taste in clothes. Your devotion to preserving old banjo recordings. Your attention to detail when signing checks. The effortless way you changed your windshield wipers every spring. The great respect you showed your elders. The affection in your voice when you read poems to your daughters. Your skill in organizing outings to orchards and berry farms. The way you always had a smile and a kind word for the heartbroken.
You have written the book of your life. Everyone who wrote it with you will carry their own favorite passage in their heart. And though the book itself may be lost – the ink fades, the paper crumbles, the binding dries to dust – those passages will resonate in other books and influence whole literatures in time.
