We like to leave behind proof that we existed. In 1812, Friedrich Mohs created a hardness scale from 1 to 10. The harder the mineral the more scratch resistant it is. The harder the mineral the greater its ability to scratch softer material.
Talc is No. 1 on the Mohs’ scale. The crushed mineral is so soft that it was used for many years as baby powder. And at No. 10, the hardest mineral is the diamond. A diamond has the power to scratch all other minerals, and easily scratches glass.
The second hardest mineral is corundum. And it too can cut glass. While it is hard to find a diamond, it was easy for my brothers and sisters and I to find corundum in piles of abandoned rocks at a local mine in southern Ontario, where we have a small cabin at the end of the Madawaska River.
At the end of the summer vacation in 1961, during my rock-collecting phase as a boy, I brought home samples of mica, pyrite, feldspar and corundum. When my father explained that corundum cuts glass, I took a small piece the size of my thumb and etched the names of my family on the bottom right corner of the kitchen windowpane: Mommy, Daddy, Bruno, Oliver, Anne, Christopher, Jose and Maria.
I still go home, even after my parents died. My younger brother lives there now, and when I visit I often run my finger over those names etched in the glass over 50 years ago.
We live with a compulsion to leave behind a legacy. When my wife and I decided to add a small addition to our two-bedroom house, a new basement was added, and before the builder closed the cinder block walls with Sheetrock, we let our three children draw whatever they wanted on the wall. They drew cats, triangles, boys with canons and girls with curls. There was a snake, a bow and arrow, trees, baseballs, and maybe a robot. Someday someone will buy this house and perhaps they will want to refinish the basement, tear down the old walls, and they will find evidence that there were children who once lived here.
People leave evidence of their presence all over the world. Most young people do not know who Kilroy was. Perhaps they heard the famous line “Kilroy was here.” It seemed that during World War II, written on the walls or sidewalks of liberated towns, many U.S. troops wrote “Kilroy was here,” suggesting that American troops had arrived and made their mark.
Evidence of our having lived fade: a garden we planted or a tree fort we built for our children. My grandmother’s shoes stayed in the closet for over 20 years after she died, but then vanished into a Goodwill bin. But some things stay, things as large and solid as the pyramids, and other things as small and fragile as footprints.
Between 1969 and 1972, 12 astronauts stepped on the moon and in all probability their footprints are still there. Because there is no wind or rain on the moon, it is assumed those impressions will be there for millions of years.
Every day the permanent sun marks the Earth with shadows of trees. Every day we have the opportunity to leave behind shadows of our existence whether in the hearts of our children and grandchildren, or scratched on the surface of the kitchen window pane.
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