You're there

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.

- from Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

Why it took me so long to open this book, I don't know.  I can't remember where (for shame!), but I read recently that we immerse ourselves in the books we do because they have something for us at that moment in our lives.  We may later return to a book that once profoundly affected us and be totally unmoved, left wondering what the big deal was.  Because the power of this book is to shake you from the grip of "A Roman named Status Quo," and because we always seem to be on our way back to that dull mean, I can't imagine a time in any lifetime when this book wouldn't matter.  Still, I'm glad I read it now.  This passage in particular was a well-timed gift:  an affirmation.  Thanks, Ray.