Final evening, my telephone began buzzing. “Activate the TV!” stated 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 front room:
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 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 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 joyful that Paul’s memoir continues to be a part of the cultural dialog. “One of many issues that basically stunned me after Paul died was that he really died,” she stated in a latest Large 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 only disappear. They only vanish. It felt so stunning 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. “Typically I am going alone, particularly after 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 convey 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. How one can write a condolence observe, and what do you assume occurs once you die?
(Due to Kelly Dawson for the real-time photograph!)
