Recently my book club read "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" by Thornton Wilder. A story of 5 lives who perished in the same accident and the Franciscan who sought to discern meaning in their passings, it's a short and enjoyable read. And its closing sentences are perfect for today, All Souls Day.
One of the things I found most touching in the book was at the end of the foreword to the book and the end of the book itself. When Tony Blair spoke at the memorial service for British victims of the World Trade Center, he chose to read the closing sentences from this little book. Today, All Souls Day, is the perfect time to share these words again:
But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.
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