Song for Autumn
"In the deep fall/don't you imagine the leaves think how/comfortable it will be to touch the earth instead of the/nothingness of air and the endless/freshets of wind?" Mary Oliver writes in "Song for Autumn." What does it mean to live a good life, to have a good death? A mentor of mine died a good death recently, loved deeply by so many who visited regularly until the very end. I never went to see him, even though S asked many times that we do so. I had heard from a mutual friend that he'd said, "Let them come if they need to say goodbye," and I didn't. I didn't because the last time I saw him, he had hugged me tightly and told me how glad he was to have worked with me, and I had said the same. We both knew, of course, that he was dying, but in that moment, surrounded by the noise and laughter at a community meal, we didn't have to say it. Before then, S and I had presented him with a painting of his favorite local hang out at his retir...