In a sense sickness is a place, more instructive than a long trip to Europe, and it's always a place where there's no company, where nobody can follow. Sickness before death is a very appropriate thing and I think those who don't have it miss one of God's mercies.
Flannery O'Connor (1988). “The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor”, p.163, Macmillan