Luminere, who invented motion pictures one hundred years ago this year, said, when he introduced his new invention, this wonder which fixed photographic images forever, motion immortalized on film, he said, "Death has been overcome."

Really?

Traveling in the South of England, our car broke down. While we awaited repairs, I wandered through the yard of the village church. Eventually, I found myself in the cemetery surrounding the church. Over in one corner of the cemetery there was a beautiful, low, brick wall enclosing fifty graves. The grass had nearly choked the plot. A large granite slab, set in the wall, bore the words, "WE SHALL NEVER FORGET YOUR SACRIFICE."

Here were fifty graves of young men from New Zealand. They were all around the ages of 17 to 25 and all from New Zealand. Who were these and why did they die here, in this little English village, so far from home?

There was no clue at the church yard as to who they were or the circumstances of their deaths. I wandered down into the village. I found the town's museum and inquired there. The attendant at the museum told me, "Strange that you should ask, I have no idea, but given a few days I could certainly find out."

As I was not going to be there for a few days, I asked a couple of other people in town. No one knew. I surmised that they were soldiers who were stationed in this little town during World War I. Victims of the flu epidemic in 1918.

And no one knew. The impressive inscription in granite was a lie. We had forgotten their sacrifice. No one could remember.

We live by what Ernest Becker called, the "vital lie," the life-giving lie that there is immortality to be had in this world. We say it in different ways. Sometimes we say it with war monuments done up in eternal granite or bronze. At other times we say it through endowed chairs at the universities. See? You will not die, will not fade, you (or at least your name) shall live forever.

Elie Wiesel stands and says of the millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust, "We promise that we will never forget you."

But we do. We will forget, given enough time, even so great a horror as Auschwitz. We forget. Everything dissolves.

In his last speech, Socrates urged his hearers to ponder only those things which endure. Philosophers must speak eternity, purity, immutability, these are the things sought by intelligent Greeks. And yet this is also a lie. Socrates died and, despite the claims of the Duke Department of Philosophy, he was also fodder for finitude, decay and corruption.

Will you agree with me that one of the sad, frustrating things about grieving over someone you love is that you promise yourself, I will not forget. I will remember her just as she was -- those eyes, that touch, the way she laughs, the sound of that voice. But even as you promise, scarcely a week after the funeral, she begins to slip through your hands. Over time, you do forget. Things fade from memory. Even the one that you love very much is unavailable to you. Eternity, purity, immutability are not to be had in this life. To say that they are is a lie, though a lie with enough vitality to sustain millions.