People are like leaves, they start out pretty and grow, beginning to blossom, but soon they grow old and begin to decay, getting closer to their inevitable death, and soon they fall, reaching that destination. Eventually they all get replaced. Sure, the leaves might be pretty, but with so many trees around, no one leaf is important.
Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away. -Homer