Life is Precious - Because We Die

"... my father once looked at a dying bird lying on its side against the curb near our house....

"Is it dead papa?" I was six and could not bring myself to look at it.
"Yes," I heard him say in a sad and distant way.
"Why did it die?"
"Everything that lives must die."
"Everything?"
"Yes."
"You, too, papa? And Mama?"
"Yes."
"And me?"
"Yes," he said. Then he added a Yiddish "But may it be only after you live a long and good life, my Asher."

I couldn't grasp it. I forced myself to look at the bird. Everything alive would one day be as still is that bird?
"Why?" I asked......
Why?"
"So life would be precious, Asher. Something that is yours forever is never precious."

(My name is Asher Lev. Chaim Potok)