A tortoise named Addwaitya (Bengali for “the one and only”) died today in a zoo in Kolkata, India.
What makes this news is the fact that the tortoise was estimated to be more than 250 years old. Imagine– he predated the Civil War, even the Revolutionary War. He was crawling around India when George Washington was chopping down cherry trees.
That sort of puts things into perspective: a human lifespan is but a flash in the pan on the cosmic scale, and even in the eyes of a common tortoise. Do what you can, when you can, and remember you only have a certain amount of time…