Philip Larkin was Right

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I used to misquote that line all the time about 'what is left of us is love'. I thought I knew what it meant. I'm not sure I quite did. I do now.

This is what he actually said, the old librarian, and he was right:

…and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

 

Dad:

 

It turns out that you dear readers have a bit of wisdom of your own. I could not have imagined a set of comments with more kindness, generosity, goodness, sense, sympathy, and even funniness than that which you have sent in the last day. I feel like printing them out and taking them to the doomier of the newspapers and saying See, see? The world is not going to hell in a handbasket after all. Not while there is this.

Thank you is too paltry a thing to say. But I do thank you, anyway. You have touched me more than you may know. The kindness of strangers; that is another thing which is true.