I'm not personally obsessed with death. At a certain age, the light that you live in is inhabited by the shades - it 'tis.

Shadows in the ordinary light

There's something oddly comforting in Heaney's matter-of-factness here. He's not dramatizing mortality or spiraling into morbid thoughts. Instead, he's describing something quieter that most people experience after a certain threshold: the presence of absence. Once you've lost people you love, once you've seen enough time pass, you can't unknow that fragility. It's not depression or constant grief—it's more like shadows moving through ordinary light.

The genius part is recognizing this isn't something you choose to think about. You don't have to be "obsessed with death" for it to reshape how you see everything. A birthday party becomes tinged with awareness. A friend's silence gets heavier. The ordinary world doesn't change, but your perception of it does, because now you're aware of who's missing from the scene. This isn't pessimism exactly—it's just the unavoidable weight that comes with living long enough to lose things.

What makes this wisdom is that Heaney doesn't suggest you should fight it or get over it. The shades are simply there now, part of your light. Once you accept that, you might actually appreciate what's illuminated more clearly.