Final night time, my telephone began buzzing. “Activate the TV!” mentioned my uncle. “Did we learn about this?!!” requested my sister-in-law Emily. “Tonight’s Jeopardy!” wrote CoJ contributor Kelly Dawson, together with a photograph she snapped in her lounge:
On the display screen, the Jeopardy immediate was, “Dying of lung most cancers, Paul Kalanithi tried to reply what makes life value residing in ‘When Breath Turns into’ this.”
In fact, I instantly referred to as my sister, Lucy. Lengthy-time readers will know that she and Paul have been married for eight years earlier than he died in 2015. She helped shepherd his memoir — When Breath Turns into Air — to publication the next yr.
On the telephone, Lucy and I first laughed in regards to the recreation present itself. Are you able to think about if somebody requested the query, “What’s air?” And also you answered, “Dying of lung most cancers, Paul Kalanithi tried to reply what makes life value residing in ‘When Breath Turns into’ this.” A really wild reply, haha.
However my sister was touched and joyful that Paul’s memoir remains to be a part of the cultural dialog. “One of many issues that actually stunned me after Paul died was that he really died,” she mentioned in a latest Massive Salad situation (reward hyperlink). “He’d had late-stage most cancers for 2 years, and I even knew he was going to die that very day, however when somebody really dies, they simply disappear. They simply vanish. It felt so surprising to me.”
We at all times go to Paul’s grave after we go to San Francisco, and Lucy and her daughter go frequently with family and friends, particularly on days like New Yr’s Eve or Paul’s birthday. “Generally I’m going alone, particularly once I don’t really feel like myself,” she instructed me. “I’ll lie on him, after which I’ll really feel higher. On our wedding ceremony anniversary, I’ll carry him a lemon from our lemon tree.”
Did you see the Jeopardy episode yesterday? And are you lacking anybody at present? xoxo
P.S. How you can write a condolence be aware, and what do you suppose occurs once you die?
(Because of Kelly Dawson for the real-time photograph!)
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