In a cemetery once, an old one in New England, I found a strangely soothing epitaph. The name of the deceased and her dates had been scoured away by wind and rain, but there was a carving of a tree with roots and branches (a classic nineteenth- century motif) and among them the words, "She attended well and faithfully to a few worthy things." At first, this seemed to me a little meager, a little stingy on the part of her survivors, but I wrote it down and have thought about it since and now I can't imagine a more proud or satisfying legacy. "She attended well and faithfully to a few worthy things."
— Victoria Safford, Beyond Absence by Edward Searl, editor