Being the center of everything becomes less important with age

From an article in the N.Y.Times Magazine about novelist Margaret Drabble (by Daphne Merkin, 9/13/09):

"As I get older," Drabble confided, "I do fear my physical world is getting thinner. When I was younger, I led multiple lives. When I'm here in Porlock, everything flows in again. It doesn't matter if I'm thinning out. . . . The trees are full, the sea is full and I am getting more ghostly. The physical world is taking over and absorbing me and eventually my ashes will be scattered in the churchyard." And then, taking her aptitude for seeing beyond the glare of self-interest - beyond the moment's buzz - to its natural extension, she muses unblinkingly on the inevitable void that awaits even those who fill the world with words: "My being the center has ceased to be of importance."

Taken from: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creating-in-flow/200911/does-it-kill-you-contemplate-death

I think that what I quoted above represents in some way Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” In this poem, I imagine a person contemplating death, considering the possibility to leave this world because he or she thinks that death is not something bad, but something inevitable that all people will face in some moment. And, I think that the person in the poem could have thought something similar to the words I quoted while he was watching the woods filled up with snow. In that moment, he might have felt attracted to nature and thought that some day his ashes will be scattered in the churchyard, being part of that nature. However, he decided to keep his promises. This means that he has social responsibilities and decides to continue his journey because he has miles to go before he sleeps (meaning that he has things to do before dying).