[Lyric] Going Home 6 (David Horowitz)

As my own death approaches, I weigh the life I have lived against what it might have been. I ask myself: Could I have been wiser, could I have done more? When I look at my life this way from the end, I can take satisfaction that I mostly gave it my all and did what I could. Perhaps I might have achieved greater heights; certainly I could have spent fewer days in pain. But I have no cause to think that, given who I was, my life could have turned out much better. Considering the bad choices I sometimes made, it might have been a lot worse
It is the certainty of death that finally makes a life acceptable. When we live as fully as we can, what room is left for regret? The poet Eliot observed that there are no lost causes because there are no won ones. Everything falls to the same imperfection. Eventually, without exception, we will follow the same arc to earth
These are the thoughts of resignation and acceptance that pass through my head. But in my heart are memories of my mother and father, the home I once had in theirs, the knowledge that they have gone before me, and that soon I will join them. Saul Bellow’s mother is there and Christopher’s too. I do not have the faith of Pascal, but I know its feeling. While reason tells me the pictures will stop, I will be unafraid when death comes. I will feel my way towards the horizon in front of me, and my heart will take me home