February 7, 2009

Page 342


Something has occurred to her - something transparently simple, something she's always known, it seems, but never articulated.  Which is that the moment of death occurs while we're still alive.  Life marches right up to the wall of that final darkness, one extreme state of being butted against the other.  Not even at breath separates them.  Not even a blink of the eye.  A person can go on and on tuned in to the daily music of food and work and weather and speech right up to the last minute, so that not a single thing gets lost.  

The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields

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