“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.”
Words for the Year 
What a beautiful passage to post. I haven’t read Fahrenheit 451 in years, and now I want to re-read it. The only thing helping these days, besides working for justice, is the many hours I’m spending weeding and planting and breathing in the smell of the dirt and flowers. Solace. Thanks for this post – it feels just right this morning.
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Wonderful piece. I hope what I leave behind are lives I’ve touched.
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