I like reading the inscriptions on tombstones. Often they speak of sadness, sometimes of futility, and sometimes of hope for something better. Some people even compose their own. Benjamin Franklin was one. The epitaph he wrote for himself says: ‘The body of B. Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old book its contents torn out, and stripped of its lettering and guilding, lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be wholly lost: for it will, as he believ’d, appear once more in a new & more perfect edition, corrected and amended by the author.’
No matter how much medical science can do to prolong life, and no matter how much we are able to put it out of our minds, we all know that what the Apostle Paul called ‘the last enemy’ will eventually catch up with us. That’s when you need the faith and hope of an epitaph like Ben Franklin’s.