More On It

I walked into the room of the dying patient today to help clean something up.

She was laying on the bed, barely cognizant, mouth open gasping for air, murmuring under her breath.

Who knows where her mind was...one thing for sure...not here with her daughter and rest of her family. She seems happy, rested, calm, as she waits.

It reminds me of these words in The English Patient-

My darling. I'm waiting for you. How long is the day in the dark? Or a week? The fire is gone, and I'm horribly cold. I really should drag myself outside but then there'd be the sun. I'm afraid I waste the light on the paintings, not writing these words. We die. We die rich with lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we've entered and swum up like rivers. Fears we've hidden in - like this wretched cave. I want all this marked on my body. Where the real countries are. Not boundaries drawn on maps with the names of powerful men. I know you'll come carry me out to the Palace of Winds. That's what I've wanted: to walk in such a place with you. With friends, on an earth without maps. The lamp has gone out and I'm writing in the darkness.

Birth and death are truly the unifiers in life.
They occur to all of us at one point in time in our lives. They affect us deeply, causing either deep joy or deep grief.
They remind us of our own mortality.

More on this later.