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To grow is to learn to die.
Is it not this the ultimate meaning of our lives ?
By the age of twenty-four, each one of us loses daily 100,000 cells in the brain that are not replaced. Fortunately, we have a lot of cells ! As we grow, we leave behind us many things. As an adult, we are no longer attached to our childhood ways; we learn to be more responsible. When married, we lose the freedom of a single person. Aging, we lose capacities, health and responsibilities.
If we spend time weeping over the past, we become imprisoned in that past. We must certainly grieve what we have lost, but we must live freely the new realities of the present and we must wait in hope for a new life.
And so, each one of us will make the final passage of death, not clinging to life, not weeping with guilt because of misspent lives, but trusting, moving forward, waiting for that new gift which we will welcome: the embrace of the Eternal.
Jean Vanier
Community and Growth
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