Old Age Comes After Many Choices

I have mentioned how amazed I am by the similarity between the beginning and the end of life, between small children and old people. There is however one fundamental difference. Children are not intellectually conscious: They do not exercise choice. But old age comes after a life of choices. It is the final fruit of choice. Old people enter into weakness after lots of relationships, having accumulated knowledge and experience: Their hearts are full of all that has been given to them, or sometimes, empty because of the things they have not had. They move towards the final journey of death with a heart that has been expanded by love, weakened by illness, pierced by suffering, humbled by failures, so that it is ready to welcome a new form of communion.
- Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home, p. 142