"The Precious Life"

John McGahern was considered Ireland's preeminent novelist, and his work was frequently as shadowed and moody as his native land is said to be. Still, light was his true topic--the light that unexpectedly slashes through the clouds, mercilessly revealing everything we attempt to hide. Somehow he made even the harshest exposure beautiful.

His final work, a memoir entitled All Will Be Well, focused on the pivotal event of his life, the death of his mother from cancer when he was ten. In the memoir, he conveys how the experience of being deeply and well loved, however briefly, remains with a person for life, providing a hidden ballast, a private refuge that nothing can destroy.

On March 30th, McGahern, too, succumbed to the disease that had taken his mother 61 years earlier. He leaves behind a unique and luminous body of work. The slender novel, Amongst Women, is considered by many to be his masterpiece, though I'm particularly grateful for his short fiction.

He also left behind some irresistible quotes, including this one from The Guardian:

"The best of life is life lived quietly, where nothing happens but our calm journey through the day, where change is imperceptible and the precious life is everything."

But it is this bit from the obit in the New York Times, which I've been carrying around in my pocket to read aloud to anyone willing to listen:

"Acknowledging that many readers found his work pessimistic, if not depressing, he offered this: 'My favorite optimist,' he said, 'was an American who jumped off the Empire State Building, and as he passed the 42nd floor, the window washers heard him say, 'So far, so good.'"

It's a great joke, but on bad days, it also seems like an apt description of the way a lot of serious global problems are being addressed: Don't look down!