My Last Name

by Eric M. Schumacher

There is an oldness—and not a good oldness—that settles on a person, even a young person, when they have walked through seasons of grief and disappointment. There is a seriousness that settles on a person when they have felt the weight of loss and responsibility and worry.

But there is also a youth that returns as one grows older. After you’ve lived long enough in this broken-down old world,

and seen the vanity of striving after the wind and felt the sting of the thorn and the thistle, you learn that, as the Preacher says, “There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour.”