My Grandfather

[Spoken]
My grandfather was a painter. He, uh, died at age eighty-eight. He illustrated Robert Frost's first two books of poetry. And he was looking at me and he said, "Harry, there's two kinds of tired. There's good tired and there's bad tired."

He said, "Ironically enough, bad tired can be a day that you won. But you won other people's battles, you lived other people's days, other people's agendas, other people's dreams. And when it was all over there was very little you in there. And when you hit the hay at night, somehow you toss and turn - you don't settle easy."

He said, "Good tired, ironically enough, can be a day that you lost. But you don't even have to tell yourself because you knew you fought your battles, you chased your dreams, you lived your days. And when you hit the hay at night, you settle easy, You sleep the sleep of the just and you can say, take me away."

He said, "Harry, all my life I've wanted to be a painter. And I've painted. God, I would have loved to have been more successful. But I've painted, and I've painted, and I am good tired, and they can take me away."

Now there is a process in your and my lives, in the insecurity that we have about a prior life or an afterlife. God, I hope there is a God, if He is - if He does exist He has a rather weird sense of humor, however. But let's just - but if there's a process that will let us live our days, that will allow us that degree of equanimity towards the end, looking at that black implacable wall of death, to allow us that degree of peace, that degree of non-fear, I want in.