She disapproved: some people thought that progress was synonymous with the cutting down of trees and the planting, instead, of concrete. They were wrong, she felt: concrete cut you off from the land and stopped the earth from breathing. Concrete was hardness and silence; it had no voice, as other building materials had. Wood brought a memory of trees, thatch of reed bed, mud of the place from which the earth had been taken. The people who commissioned and built large buildings thought nothing of that, but ordinary people, people who did not think always of money, had always turned to trees for shade
——Alexander McCall Smith《To the Land of Long Lost Friends》
It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day.
