keyword epilogue the poet Keats said I have long…

Page 185 keyword death keyword epilogue the poet Keats said I have long been half in love with easeful death... To cease upon the midnight with no pain. But I would also beg a few days when week but still coherent I might have a few hours with my close friends and then lastly with you each of you my own much loved grandchildren one at a time I would treasure this chance to say goodbye to you. I feel very privileged to have had the chance to know you. I have been fascinated to watch you grow up and see how you take on the world. You are my legacy, my final gift to the world and I am so proud of you, of all that you have achieved so far in your short lives and all of all that you might achieve. I l Loved what you present ed and the way you have done XYZ. It will not be a sad occasion our meeting. I have had a long and wonderful life, but all things even good ones come to an end and I'm tired now. Life has been a bit one-legged since your grandmother died and trying to walk alone has been painful. Death I see is one long sleep from which you never wake. I would love to think that in that sleep I might meet your grandmother again in some way but I know it's just wistful dreaming. When we meet there for I would like to ask you about your hopes for your own story, how you see yourself in 10 years time, doing what than living where, with whom perhaps. I like to think that you and your generation will undo some of the mess that my generation and the one after have left behind. I dare to believe that your values will be better than ours were, that you will be less selfish, less heatless of those less fortunate than you and you will see who needs and who and what needs to be protected, that you will be kinder than we were more tolerant of those who live differently. In our defense we lived in a different time. We may have been selfish and shortsighted, you got to pluck what we could out of life before it ended. By comparison you are fortunate. You can reasonably expect to live into your '90s. You hopefully will not have to fight any wars unless you choose to. You can expect to be healthy You will be more educated and you will be able to go where you want to do what you choose you. There's a world with much more freedom than I knew. The other side of freedom is insecurity. That is the cost of freedom. it has to be organized by yourself. I hope that some of the ideas that I presented will help. Trust yourself, don't be afraid to make mistakes, be honest even if it cost you, and remember the proverb that happiness is having something to work on, something to hope for in someone to love. Some practical tips. Learn how to play musical instrument. Learn a sport. Write a diary. Fall in love. Remember Aristotle's virtua especially the one of courage to stand up for what you believe no matter what but remember to his golden mean that too much courage can turn into air against. And so farewell, to you and all the others who may read these letters. May your lives be fulfilling, worthwhile and enjoyable and at the end may you have no regrets for what you left undone.

— from The Landing (Death) · 21 letters on life and its challenges by Charles handy

In the book

We grieve the living too — the ends of relationships that do not die but change — and learning to tell mortal grief from that ordinary, relational kind keeps us from being blindsided by either. Even our dread of the end is more tangled than we admit; the poet Keats confessed that he had long been half in love with easeful death, with ceasing upon the midnight with no pain. And grief can be borne and even transfigured: I think of a man named Robert, whose family said that their sadness at his death never once touched their love for him, and that they were at peace, because he had lived such a rich and well-loved life. — The Landing (Death)

Frankl, who survived the camps, concluded that meaning outranks happiness, and built his whole therapy around it. There's a proverb I keep coming back to, that happiness is having something to work on, something to hope for, and someone to love. That's the whole of it, really. — Enjoy the Flight (Living/Balance/Happiness/Passion)

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