The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10
Some books are so powerful it is difficult to write about them, but, the most powerful are the ones that you should write about. I recently posted on Facebook about three of my favorite childhood books, The Lion’s Paw, The Pink Motel and The Horse That Swam Away. I told how they influenced the way I write, use words and build stories. I loved those books, still do, and read them occasionally although I am long past childhood. They still impact me today. I recently read a book, very different in subject matter and style of writing, but I cannot get it out of my mind, When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. Kalanithi was a neurosurgeon who also had degrees in English and History. His focus was “to find answers that are not in books … to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” His study became even more poignant when he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Finding the answers to those questions drove him to write a book even while he was taking chemotherapy. Taking to heart the philosophy that “even if I’m dying, until I actually die, I am still living,” Kalanithi made his mantra, a quote by Samuel Beckett in his book, The Unnamable, “ I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” As a doctor, he already had had to come to terms with the traditional role of the doctor, “saving people”. Yet, he noted that “Doctors in highly charged fields met patients at inflected moments, the most authentic moments, where life and identity were under threat; their duty included learning what made that particular patient’s life worth living, and planning to save those things if possible-or to allow the peace of death if not.” While, lately, I feel the best I have felt in years, when you live with a chronic illness, particularly one that ebbs and flows, it is always in the back of your mind, “How much time do I have left?” Not time to simply exist, but how much time to I have to do the things that I love? What is it in my life that I am willing to set aside? What makes life worth living for me? That question is not just about dying, it is about living, too. For if those are things that make life worth living, shouldn’t they be things I am doing now? None of us know the exact day that we will die. While we may have a terminal diagnosis, the doctors can only guess when that will be. The progression of our disease could slow or accelerate. Or we could be hit by a car before the disease takes us. So, what is it that you have been dreaming about? What makes life worth living for you? Don’t wait for a diagnosis to take that step. Live now. Live fully. As the song says, “Live like you are dying.”
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