When Breath Becomes Air

Finality insights…

The book is When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.

I thanked her for it and looked forward to reading it given the description of it she shared with me.

Since I’ve had time to read being home parked on the couch and some energy at times to do so I stared reading it several weeks ago. Like her experience with reading it I was compelled to continue but took my time in order to digest some of the contents more fully.

I have this thing about really good books and not wanting them to end so I take my sweet time reading some really good reads! This book is just such that kind of read too.

But, with all my health issues, the topic of this book and my awareness and belief that things happen and unfold in life just as they are meant to I wondered if, just if, I was handed this book to help me learn how to live my life with an end to my life in plain site. So, I set the book down and let it be for a spell in order to not stir up any more distress inside me.

You see the author Dr. Kalanithi is a young very very bright and talented neurosurgeon who learns he has a terminal cancer and actually learns how to really live life in the face of dying. It is a profound book. His insights are amazing and I urge you to read it.

I took this book with me to my mom’s when she was hospitalized along with some other books too. I hadn’t finished it yet.

And then I met Virginia, my mom’s delightful 95 year old roommate when my mom was hospitalized after having a stent put in. I wrote a post about her on 7/9/16.

You see Virginia has many health issues and decided in the midst of my time there with my mom that she didn’t want to do all the drastic measures to give herself the possibility of more life time. She is ready to die.

This reality strikes me not only as very very sad because Virginia is an absolutely wonderful woman but as incredibly courageous and strong. She made that decision on her own and shared it with me…this stranger who just happened to be in the room with my mom.

Just how one can make that decision I’ve often wondered about and recognize that it must take such tremendous strength to face ones death right in the eye. I can’t imagine how I could do ever do that. I suppose one never does till that very moment is in our minds eye staring us down.

I mentioned this book to Virginia and also “Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande because I thought they would help her and her family too. She wrote the titles down.

When my mom went back into the hospital again due to a TIA stroke, I visited Virginia once again and decided to take the book with me and offer it to her to read. She was delighted.

I checked in with her over the next couple of days and she was reading it and it was helpful to her. A friend of mom’s picked up the book from her for me on mom’s last day at the hospital when I was at my moms resting.

Virginia wrote me a note letting me know the book was wonderful and gave her great insight about one’s finality. I know this book is helping her in what ever time this dear woman has left.

I treasure her note. It brings tears each time I read it. She gives me courage and strength and once again I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to meet her and come to know a little about her.

I finished the book yesterday. But I am far from finished with this book that I will read several times more and of course recommend and share it with others too just as that person who gave it to me encouraged me to do. How can I not!

So you see, I know that I was given this book so that dear Virginia might read it at the very time she probably needed to read it…isn’t it amazing how life does unfold just as it is and just as it does?!

What thoughts do you have about what it would be like to know that you had very limited time left in your life? What would you do and not do? What’s most important to you? Who is most important in your life?

Do Contact Me together in Grief Therapy we can explore some of those questions.