And what had he left behind?

I imagined that, in death, he had shrivelled up smaller than ever. And then they burned him in an oven until he was nothing but ashes. And what had he left behind? A nothing-much book-shop in a nothing-much neighbourhood and two girls at least one of whom was a little bit strange? What kind of life was that? I wondered. Lying in that hospital bed with his cut-open head and his muddled brain, what had been on his mind as he looked at me?

So what do we leave behind?