The Stone Cutter

There once was a tiny village where a stone cutter lived with his family. He loved his job and he was the best there ever was. For no one could cut a stone the way that he did. Some even said it was in his blood, for his father before him was also a stone cutter. He always made sure to take his time and get the cut exactly the way the customer ordered. His whole life revolved around perfection, he had the perfect wife and kids with the perfect job, so perfection was part of his everyday routine. Till one day, there was a fire in the tiny village and several houses were burned and three lives were lost. The village leader came to the stone cutter and asked him to cut three stones. The stone cutter's heart was saddened to learn that a mother and her two small children were killed in the fire. So right away, he started carving the stones to mark their graves. When it came time to carve the names into the stone, the stone cutter was horrified to learn that the three souls lost in the fire were his own wife and kids. These were to be the last stones that the stone cutter ever carved besides his own. When he learned of his loss, he simply couldn't go on living. And on the day he finished cutting his own stone, he simply died of a broken heart. The whole village mourned the loss of the stone cutter and his family. When they buried him beside his family his stone read, “Here lies the stone cutter, who lived by perfection and died by a broken heart”. And on his stone was a heart with a single crack down the middle.