A poet and a mystic

Sunday night I went to a celebration of the life and work of John O'Donahue, who died suddenly and in his sleep two weeks ago. I had met only him once - he was giving a talk/poetry reading about life in general. He spoke for hours about everything and nothing at all, and at the end we were all begging for more. He spoke with a soothing, western Irish lilt - the kind of voice that could calm you even if he were reading out the atrocities of the daily news. He seemed a beautiful man, and the celebration was beautiful as well.

It is strange to think that someone who inspired me so much in such a short space of time has left me speechless in his death. I have been trying to write about the odd sense of grief over the loss of a man who I didn't know, the gratitude I feel towards a person who challenged me and the way I view the world, but nothing seems to come. John O'Donahue was a man who absorbed every moment of his life and experienced every ounce of joy and pain and all of the things in between. I guess all I want to say is that I hope I can find it within myself to live in that way. No better time than the present to start trying.