A Room Called Peace

Buechner wrote about A Room Called Remember, but I'm sitting this morning in a room called peace.  There is a giftedness about watching life draw to a gradual close without strain or struggle, silently, peacefully. Poppi's breathing has slowed and will soon stop altogether, and according to every indication it could go momentarily unnoticed when it happens. In a whitewashed room such as this, life scales back to the essentials--a breath, a heartbeat, a swallowing. And suddenly, what matters most in all the world is this sacred sharing of each slowing breath.  Perhaps in the stillness I hear a voice say to me, "Cherish better each moment with the ones you love. Savor more sweetly your own daily gifts."  Bonhoeffer wrote of this in Life Together: 

"We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts... Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things."