Andy Catlett

"And so that year of 1943 was in a sense my last year of innocence, of the illusion of permanence and peace. I was about to enter the time that is told by change, by death and loss, by the absence of the past and its members. by now, of all the people I have been remembering from those days in Port William, I alone am still alive. I am, as Maze Tickburn used to say, the onliest one."

"Time, then, is told by love's losses, and by the coming of love, and by love continuing in gratitude for what is lost. It is folded and enfolded and unfolded forever and ever, the love by which the dead are alive and the unborn welcomed into the womb. The great question for the old and the dying, I think, is not if they have loved and been loved enough, but if they have been grateful enough for love received and given, however much. No one who has gratitude is the onliest one. Let us pray to be grateful to the last."

"In our work we could feel the new year coming, the days lengthening, the time of birth and growth returning, and this seemed to bring a happiness to everybody, in spite of the war and people's griefs and fears."

"And now, as often before, I am reminded how grateful I am to have been there, in that time, with these I have remembered. I was there with them; they remain here with me. For in that little while Port William sank into me, becoming one with the matter and light, and the darkness, of my mind, never again to be far from my thoughts, no matter where I went or what I did."

I love this book. Love it.