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Elizabeth Hanson's avatar

Your writing really uplifted me Tessa! WOW. So beautiful. Yes... you showed us the place we have to stay in regardless of what is happening around us. So crazy. I am finishing up a 40 page Covid report. I'll send it to you when it's online! Thank you again so much for your uplifting essay!

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Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

This joyful reminder of the brevity and preciousness of life reminds me of “My Own Life” (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/oliver-sacks-on-learning-he-has-terminal-cancer.html) by one of my favorite (and most-missed) human beings in history, Oliver Sacks.

As he reflects on his experience of coping with terminal cancer, he writes:

“Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life.

“On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight.

“This will involve audacity, clarity and plain speaking; trying to straighten my accounts with the world. But there will be time, too, for some fun (and even some silliness, as well).”

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