gratitude

 

 

 

 

 

My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption,

 a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone,

 but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die,

 they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, 

for it is the fate - the genetic and neural fate - of every human being

 to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, 

to die his own death. I cannot pretend I am without fear. 

 

But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. 

I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given 

something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. 

I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse 

of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, 

a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself 

has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

 

 

 

 
 ~ Oliver Sacks
from Gratitude

with thanks to whiskey river