One wonders if he chose to live his life that way. Selecting brevity over loquaciousness, precision over vagueness, certainty over ambiguity. I wonder if he knew that your life in all its glory will be summarized in a few words written over your dead body. I wonder if he had envisioned his epitaph written over his tombstone. I wonder if he thought that the elegance of the carving on that piece of rock should be matched with the elegance of a few words that would capture his essence. I wonder if he knew that long after he was gone, he would be introduced and summarized to anyone visiting him as a man of few words. I wonder if he had chosen those words: “He lived”.
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6 comments:
Well written! Reminds me of the graveyard next to the playground in the campus of our school - there were the ornate ones, and the simple ones. Never understood the former; like you say perhaps some prefer to be remembered a certain way.
@Niranjan: Yes, indeed. People's personalities are reflected in death as much as when they were alive.
Left me thinking!Nice one.
@Fighter Jet: Thanks!
i wonder.
One of the best epitaphs, I find, was written on the grave of Marcel Duchamp,
'Besides, it's always other people who die.'
:).
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