With Other Thoughts

And some day there will be nothing left of everything that has twisted my life and grieved it and filled me so often with such anguish. 

Some day, with the last exhaustion, peace will come and the motherly earth will gather me back home. 

It won't be the end of things, only a way of being born again, a bathing and a slumbering where the old and the withered sink down, where the young and new begin to breathe. 

Then, with other thoughts, I will walk along streets like these, and listen to streams, and overhear what the sky says in the evening, over and over and over. ~ Hermann Hesse

A good friend of mine worries a lot, talks a lot, about death and dying. Understandable, in many ways. This friend is close to my age and many of our loved ones are either experiencing dire, life-altering health issues, or have recently died. 

Not in the exact words of Hesse, but in some form, I tell my friend, "When '...the old and the withered sink down, ... the young and new begin to breathe.' That is as it should be. We will soon have had our time on this planet and, if we're fortunate, Mother Earth will take us gently back to her bosom." 

I can appreciate momentarily dwelling on the concerns of illness and death, but then I want to move on to the NOW of life, the life we are still fortunate enough to have, the experiences we are still able to enjoy, the plans we can make for tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow. 

After all, as Thornton Wilder observed, "We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures."