Final night time, my cellphone began buzzing. “Activate the TV!” stated 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, the Jeopardy immediate was, “Dying of lung most cancers, Paul Kalanithi tried to reply what makes life price residing in ‘When Breath Turns into’ this.”
After all, I instantly referred to 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 cellphone, Lucy and I first laughed concerning 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 price residing in ‘When Breath Turns into’ this.” A really wild reply, haha.
However my sister was touched and completely satisfied that Paul’s memoir remains to be a part of the cultural dialog. “One of many issues that actually shocked me after Paul died was that he really died,” she stated in a latest Huge Salad difficulty (present 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 stunning to me.”
We all the time go to Paul’s grave once we go to San Francisco, and Lucy and her daughter go repeatedly 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 informed me. “I’ll lie on him, after which I’ll really feel higher. On our marriage ceremony anniversary, I’ll deliver him a lemon from our lemon tree.”
Did you see the Jeopardy episode yesterday? And are you lacking anybody at the moment? xoxo
P.S. write a condolence observe, and what do you suppose occurs while you die?
(Due to Kelly Dawson for the real-time picture!)
