"Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?"
    The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go.
    Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was..
    "I will answer your question."
    Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter.
    And what he said went like this:
    "When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village.  One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror.  A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place..
    "I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece.  this one, and, by scratching it o n a stone, I made it round.  I began to play with it as a topy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine--in deep holes and crevices and dark closets.  It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.
 
    "I kept the little mirror, and, as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game.  As I became a man, I  grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life.  I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of ligh.. But light--truth, understanding, knowledge--is there, and it will shine in many dark places only if I reflect it.
    "I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know.  Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world--into the black places in the hearts of men--and change some things in some people.  Perhaps others may see and do likewise.  This is what I am about.  This is the meaning of my life."
 

(Robert Fulghum)