Jeffrey Eugenides in the February 5, 2018, issue of The New Yorker has a short story entitled “Bronze.”  In the story, Eugene, an aspiring poet, translates the Roman poet Horace’s boastful final poem in his third book of Odes, Exegi Monumentum Aere Perennius, thus:

I have made a monument more lasting than bronze
And higher than the royal site of the pyramids
which neither harsh rains nor the wild North wind can erode
Nor the countless succession of years, and the flight of the seasons.
I will not entirely die! And a large part of me will avoid the grave.

And so Horace has fulfilled his boast.  More than two thousand years later, he’s still quoted in The New Yorker, the leading literary magazine in the most culturally powerful nation on earth.

One of the great shocks of my life was a phone call 14 years ago informing me that one of my best friends from high school, Will Capel, had died suddenly in Cambodia.  Will was one of those guys who communicated friendship by arguing with you ceaselessly.  He engaged through verbal tussling and he was never happier than when you smacked him with an apposite blow.  When the prospect of future arguments with Will was suddenly, irrevocably, and without warning cut down, it felt unreal, impossible . . . just . . . not.

A great consolation during that time for myself and for Will’s friends was some travel writing that he had done for a website.  It wasn’t much, but it was something that allowed us for a short while to spend a little time engaging with the mind of our friend.  His distinctive voice was still there.  Judging.  Evaluating.  Arguing.  Will Capel wasn’t Horace.  He won’t be remembered 2,000 years later.  But for some small time, he did not entirely die.  Some small part of him avoided the grave.  I’ll always be grateful for that time.

So my advice is to write.

If you love someone, write to them.  It doesn’t have to be grand, or mushy, or anything.  Not a text on your smart phone, but in some medium that has a chance to survive you.  Acid-free paper is best, of course, but even an email is pretty good.  Gmail wants us to think that it’s forever.  We’ll see.  Give those who might miss you an opportunity to engage with your mind a little longer.  They’ll be glad you did.