“You taught me the courage of stars before you left, how light carries on endlessly, even after death.” Those lyrics are from a song titled “Saturn,” by Ryan O’Neal, who performs as Sleeping at Last. It is a song about a deathbed conversation, the imparting of wisdom from a dying person to a beloved survivor: that it is an extraordinary chance to have existed at all, a rare and marvelous happenstance to have lived and experienced consciousness. Even more rare and marvelous, in this riven, aching world, to have thrived. To have found love, joy, security, fulfillment.
