“I should dearly love to embrace any one of my former friends at this moment. It is a comfort; I experienced it today when saying good-bye to my dear ones before death. . . . Life is a gift, life is happiness, each minute might have been an age of happiness.”
At the age of 28, a man stood on the execution platform, condemned for his anti-government beliefs. He was given five final minutes to reflect on his life. Standing face to face with death, he no longer felt the fierce chill of the winter wind, and even the cold earth beneath his bare feet seemed incomparably precious and beautiful. A wave of regret washed over him—Why hadn’t I realized this before? Just then, an order came to halt the execution. His death sentence was commuted to exile, and he narrowly escaped death.
That man was Fyodor Dostoevsky, who would go on to become one of the greatest literary figures of all time, writing masterpieces such as Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov. The letter quoted above was written to his brother on the very day he returned from the brink of death. From that moment on, Dostoevsky never complained about pain or hardship. He became more generous in his view of others’ flaws and developed a habit of appreciating even the smallest joys in life.
The true value of what is precious often becomes clear only when we are about to lose it—or after it is already gone. Isn’t this also true in our daily lives? Today is the tomorrow that those who passed away yesterday longed for. Let us cherish each day and fill it with gratitude.
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