Awakened
In advanced age, my health worsening, I woke up in the middle of the night, and experienced a feeling of happiness so intense and perfect that in all my life I had only felt its premonition. And there was no reason for it. It didn’t obliterate consciousness; the past which I carried was there, together with my grief. And it was suddenly included, was a necessary part of the whole. As if a voice were repeating: “You can stop worrying now; everything happened just as it had to. You did what was assigned to you, and you are not required anymore to think of what happened long ago.” The peace I felt was a closing of accounts and was connected with the thought of death. The happiness on this side was like an announcement of the other side. I realized that this was an undeserved gift and I could not grasp by what grace it was bestowed on me.
Poem by Czeslaw Milosz
“He wrote this not long before his death at the age of 93. It inspires me because I look forward to the time when I have a real letting go of my burdens and my expectations, when I can really look at my life, the whole of my past life, with absolute forgiveness and acceptance, and look forward to the future as a kind of unnamed grace that I don’t even know what it’s going to look like. I love the idea that the time will come when my neurotic strivings are all put to bed and there’s something about Milosz describing this wonderful experience one night that really gives me hope.”
Katy Butler, author of The Art of Dying Well:
A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life
