When I experience a new ache or pain, I immediately think it is a sign of something terminal. I say to myself to assuage the fear, "I have had a good life and I am ready to die."
At this age, I sometimes think it is time to prepare for death. Time for a more pared-down life, a leaning into acceptance of the inevitable.
Most of us don't really live with a knowledge of our own death. It is an abstract concept like the square root of infinity.
When Adrian died two years ago, death was suddenly in the room with me. I hugged Adrian's body, but where was he?
Adrian's guide to life was the poem, Invictus, by William Ernest Henley. It begins,
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
It ends,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Adrian sought to live his life fearlessly, as a grand adventure. But when his body would no longer allow him to do that, he embraced death.
I feel sometimes that I have one foot planted squarely on this earth and the other lifting off into the unknown.
I question my daily routine.
I wonder whether to let go and take what comes, or to deliberately forge a life of reflection and preparation for my own death.
This is not morbidity.
It is reality.
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