And when I die.

We are all going to die. Our clock will stop and that will be the end of us on the earth. For most of us, our passing will be of little note, even at the time. And then, I heard or read somewhere, when the last person who knew us also dies, we will be altogether forgotten. Other than our posterity, who may know us only as a name on records, there will be no memory of our ever having been here.

But there is this.

For those of us who wiled away part of our lives putting words on paper, our names will live on in some fashion. On the shelves of libraries and archives there will stand books with my name on the spine. Some of the books some of us write will be saved for decades, even centuries. We will have created things that are as close to indelible as anything mankind creates. After all, we still read books written thousands of years ago, and know something of the people who wrote them.

This, of course, does not mean our books or our names will enjoy that same longevity. But, at the very least, I will have left something behind to note my passing. Somehow, that seems to matter, somewhat.