Zafon

 I’ve been reading a series of books by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, set in Barcelona, and connected through a series of memorable characters and a concept of a place called “the Cemetery of Forgotten Books”.  Besides being an amazing literary accomplishment and one of my greatest pleasures in the last year, one idea really stuck with me.  A character says something like “you live until the last person reads your book.”  It seemed to me like the concept that we exist as long as people remember us.  But that is still finite.  I think often of my grandparents, and occasionally of my great grandparents.  My children will continue to remember some about my grandparents, more about my parents, and more about me and Jill. Their kids, if they ever exist, will have never known my grandparents.  And likely barely will know my parents.  The thought is kinda lovely, but logically it still doesn’t keep me around for more than another 50 or 60 years.  If I had a book, maybe that would keep me around longer.  I kinda do, the one version of Corner Pieces, the book, I had printed in 2019.  But still.  Eventually the memory of me, or even my book (the one I have or the one I may write) will be gone.  There is not a path to immortality there.  The most famous will be remembered for longer, but still not forever.  

Remind me to talk about immortality at some point.