Thurgood Marshall

Purported photo of Thurgood Marshall's dog

Thurgood Marshal did something somewhere sometime. He knew stuff and he lived in a town or a city and had neighbors. If he had a dog it probably lived in the backyard and slept most of the time. People like Thurgood Marshal are famous for a reason. Whatever they did, people wrote about it.

There are a number of things I take from this. Number one, of course, is that I have a terrible memory. Number two is that almost all of us will be forgotten eventually.

Is that a bummer?

We are a world replete with dying men and women grasping for immortality. Everybody wants to be remembered. Not sure what your religious leanings are, but what if we don't have an end?

Not having an end would certainly ease my mind about forgetting who Thurgood Marshall was . . . I mean . . . is. If Thurgood has no end, it doesn't matter that I forgot what he did. Seems to me, if Thurgood has no end, the important thing is who he was when he died.

Who will you be when you die? Obituaries argue accolades are what matters, but if you have no end, just continue on in another sphere, what you did is nice but the end product is what matters.

I would certainly be sad if I died tomorrow without ever gracing a bestseller list, but I am caught in the pull of gravity just like you. This weight we inhabit, the press of pounds, I yearn for things I cannot command. Notice me. Honor me. Celebrate me. Remember me.

We are all too unaware.

The world inside is what counts and we are the builders. Your world and my world with outside lines blurred by incursions, or the lines distinct for those who see.

What we do in this life will crumble. Who we are will remain.

Who are you?