James Earl Jones, Distinguished Actor and Voice of Darth Vader, Dies at 93

There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.

the last and greatest of his protectors had died, and he was more alone than he had ever been before.

Death feels like God snapping his fingers. It’s always the same. The old sorcery flies out of him like a raven bursting free of a pie, and the spell is broken. His bones remember their age and turn accordingly to dust. There is always the briefest of moments, while his skin is still curling into parchment, when he can feel the morbid wrongness of i