More beauty in this life than the world could bear

I recently finished Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. I had to say, it took me a long time to get into it. And, I almost gave up a few times. But the end of the book was really beautiful, and I ended up being really touched by it - and even crying on the bus. I just wanted to share a quote from one of the female characters in the book. She's near the end of her life, and trying to comfort her daughters as they prepare to lose her:

Gloria laughed at them and said that she'd overtaken grief a long time ago, that she was tired of everyone wanting to go to heaven, nobody wanting to die. The only thing worth grieving over, she said, was that sometimes there was more beauty in this life than the world could bear.

I was still thinking about this scene the next morning, when I heard Story Corps come on. And, could so clearly see the connection: Robert Patterson and his wife Karen. So beautiful and sad at the same time.