Nobody knows how long he or she will live. The longer, the better? I don't think so. But I know I can't decide how long I will live. What matters is how to live.
I think I'd like to live contentedly in my conditions. I live carefully. I live frugally. I live honestly. I live peacefully. I hope my conditions will continue as long as I live.
I know a lady who is 83 years old. Her husband and she ran a Japanese-style hotel in Ishikawa-ken. But they closed down the hotel ten years ago, because they were getting old and tired. They came to Tokyo, where their daughter lived.
They did not live together with their daughter. They rented an apartment. But her husband got a cancer and died in a hospice. ( It is a special hospital where people who are dying are taken care of.)
It was after his death that I became friends with her. She was 78 years old at that time. I came to live in Tokyo that year. I had no friends to enjoy talking with.
She invited me to her dinner. She often cooked for me. She was good at cooking. (Indeed, all of my friends are good at cooking.) Gradually I became very busy and she often went to her daughter's. We had very few chances to see each other.
Yesterday I happened to see her on the street. Long time, no see ! She was walking with the help of a handcart. She said she had lost her health. Her doctor advised her to undergo a through health examination. But she did not seem ill at all.
She was elegantly dressed. She seemed so charming. She was going to Japanese Literature Class. She was studying Genji Monogatari in the class.
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She is getting old but she is still in youth, I think.
As Ullman, an American poet, says,
"Youth is not a time of life--it is a state of mind;"
I think I'd like to live contentedly in my conditions. I live carefully. I live frugally. I live honestly. I live peacefully. I hope my conditions will continue as long as I live.
I know a lady who is 83 years old. Her husband and she ran a Japanese-style hotel in Ishikawa-ken. But they closed down the hotel ten years ago, because they were getting old and tired. They came to Tokyo, where their daughter lived.
They did not live together with their daughter. They rented an apartment. But her husband got a cancer and died in a hospice. ( It is a special hospital where people who are dying are taken care of.)
It was after his death that I became friends with her. She was 78 years old at that time. I came to live in Tokyo that year. I had no friends to enjoy talking with.
She invited me to her dinner. She often cooked for me. She was good at cooking. (Indeed, all of my friends are good at cooking.) Gradually I became very busy and she often went to her daughter's. We had very few chances to see each other.
Yesterday I happened to see her on the street. Long time, no see ! She was walking with the help of a handcart. She said she had lost her health. Her doctor advised her to undergo a through health examination. But she did not seem ill at all.
She was elegantly dressed. She seemed so charming. She was going to Japanese Literature Class. She was studying Genji Monogatari in the class.
------------------------------
She is getting old but she is still in youth, I think.
As Ullman, an American poet, says,
"Youth is not a time of life--it is a state of mind;"