After a lifetime's independence– yes, selfish independence as my daughter would rightly claim – I am terrified of being reduced to childhood once more, to helplessness, to seas of confusion from which the cruel lucid intervals poke up like rock shoals.

Death, when it's right there it doesn't seem too huge and terrible to let into your mind.

I am afraid of losing what I have already valued.

I can only strive for what is important

Anything that makes it easier to understand, makes it a little easier to bear.

The dead and not-yet dead, we are company all together.

Is nothing in life ever straight and clear, the way children see it?