blessing in disguise.” “It must be very well-disguised,” Churchill
replied. He was wrong. She was right. As usual.
Not only because it allowed Churchill to write his final set of
memoirs, The Second World War, which firmly established and
taught the lessons that have prevented the world from veering
toward suicide since, but because it allowed him once again to rest
up and balance himself. We can see photos of him painting in
Marrakech in 1948, in the south of France in the 1950s. In all he
would paint some 550 paintings in his lifetime, 145 of them after the
war.
It was, in the end, a life of much struggle and sacrifice, a lot of it
thankless and misunderstood. It was productive, but at a high
personal cost. The same tasks and responsibilities would have
burned out and burned through a dozen normal people.
“Was it worth it?” a wearied hero had asked in Churchill’s only
novel. “The struggle, the labor, the constant rush of affairs, the
sacrifice of so many things that make life easy, or pleasant—for
what?” He wrote that when he was young, when he had been busy
and ambitious, and but not yet truly engaged in public service. In the
future lay fifty-five years in Parliament, thirty-one years as a
minister, and nine years as prime minister. The years ahead would
show him the true meaning of life and what it meant to really fight
for causes that mattered. He experienced both triumph and disaster.
And by the end of his life, he came to know that it was all worth it—
and certainly all of us alive today are grateful for those labors.
Indeed, Churchill’s last words were confirmation of this fact:
The journey has been enjoyable and well worth making—
once!Epicurus once said that the wise will accomplish three things in
their life: leave written works behind them, be financially prudent
and provide for the future, and cherish country living. That is to say,
we will be reflective, we will be responsible and moderate, and we
will find time to relax in nature. It cannot be said that Churchill did