Final evening, my telephone began buzzing. “Activate the TV!” mentioned my uncle. “Did we find out 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.”
After all, I instantly known as my sister, Lucy. Lengthy-time readers will know that she and Paul had 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 sport 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 very wild reply, haha.
However my sister was touched and completely happy that Paul’s memoir remains to be a part of the cultural dialog. “One of many issues that basically shocked me after Paul died was that he really died,” she mentioned in a latest Massive Salad challenge (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 only disappear. They simply vanish. It felt so surprising to me.”
We at all times go to Paul’s grave once we go to San Francisco, and Lucy and her daughter go frequently with family and friends, particularly on days like New 12 months’s Eve or Paul’s birthday. “Generally I’m going alone, particularly once I don’t really feel like myself,” she advised me. “I’ll lie on him, after which I’ll really feel higher. On our marriage ceremony anniversary, I’ll carry him a lemon from our lemon tree.”
Did you see the Jeopardy episode yesterday? And are you lacking anybody in the present day? xoxo
P.S. write a condolence notice, and what do you assume occurs while you die?
(Due to Kelly Dawson for the real-time photograph!)
