Night time is a tough time for old people. In the darkness and quiet times we have plenty of opportunity to think. And what do we think about? Hopefully, you’ve read enough to know. It is a running review of the past, present, and future of life, complete with an inner dialogue between two parts of the same brain: a reasonable, intelligent part, and a strange little voice that won’t shut up.

But I was surprised the other night when the little inside voice calmly said this to the rest of me :

“I am ready for death. When it happens I’ll welcome it.”

The inside voice is the mouth in your head that thinks and talks about things your brain tries to keep you from thinking about. The usual conversation for me involves food. My brain says “you’ve had enough, stop eating”, while the inside voice says “man that Klondike Bar was good, lets have another.”

There isn’t a winner in debates between the brain and the inside voice..they tend to reach an agreement, a settlement, a compromise, and life goes on. Sometimes I get the extra Klondike Bar, sometimes I don’t.

So on that fateful night, as I lay awake in the dark thinking of all life’s complexities, my inside voice blurted out the statement noted above.

I sat up in bed and bed and said loudly: “Whoa. Really?”

Yeah. That’s exactly what happened. My brain and inside voice agreed on something and I was the last to know. I was surprised but felt a relief, a peacefulness new to my life. I liked it.

In the light of morning I recalled the night’s events and noted the relief, the peacefulness still filled my body with…well, peace.

Its not easy to comprehend the billions who have died before us, or the billions who will probably die after us, but there is some comfort in knowing they exist. But as someone once said to me: “There’s the past, there’s the present, and there’s the future. Live where your feet are.”

Which reminds me I need new shoes. Slip-ons. No laces.