Not everyone has moments of clarity when they discover they are dying. My wife did it.
Her aggressive cancer had winnowed her body and her strength was so limited that she dictated the essay to me in a sunny, glass-enclosed reading room at the University of California, Santa Cruz, rather than typing it herself.
As we overlooked a redwood forest, Amy couldn’t have predicted that the lines she composed on the spot would be calls to action for readers across the United States, but also in Canada, Poland, France and Greece.
She was inundated with responses to her essay, which essentially asked: What would your life be like if you cared a lot less about what other people think of you?
Could life be “a series of moments” and not the endless search for stability rather than happiness, or the work to realize a long-delayed dream of fulfillment after retirement?
Amy used to embrace creative risk and adventure, and wrote how putting friends and family first allowed her to face her terminal cancer diagnosis with deep gratitude for life that she loved.
“Last love is finding someone who will show up for you,” Amy wrote.
And also: “I’ve always tried to say ‘yes’ to the voice that tells me I should go out and do something now, even though that decision seems extremely impractical.”
Her essay touched people near and far, and for reasons that surprised us, strangers wanted to contact her before her death. They wanted to share their own stories and gratitude with her.
It offered her a comfort she didn’t know she needed.
Here are some of those that moved her the most.
“I live in a small town in Idaho full of hate, and after reading your story, I need to sell up and move!” a message read.
Another reader wrote about feeling stuck on a corporate career ladder and feeling anxious, which was putting a strain on his mental health and close relationships.
“I have 10 chapters of a weird and wonderful novel and I haven’t done anything with it in months, although it would probably only take me a few weeks to finish writing it,” he said. writing. “I will take a small piece of your fearless creative spirit with me as I rearrange my priorities in honor of remembering what is truly important in life (which…is not corporate America). “
For one Los Angeles-based reader, Amy’s column was the tipping point that pushed him to book an endlessly postponed trip and reunion with loved ones.
“You helped me realize that I’ve said NO to too many life-affirming memories, even though our family has suffered a lot of loss over the years,” the reader said. “I will let my wife, my daughter and my son know that I will be making this trip to Kastoria, Greece, the country of their paternal ancestors, most of whom were taken to the camps during World War II. We will spend wonderful family time in a beautiful place and thank our family who came before us for their sacrifices. And I will think of you, say a prayer and send you my eternal gratitude.
Other readers wrote about lives filled with tedious complications, from high-maintenance people to unnecessary possessions.
One such reader thanked Amy for “really driving home (the) message to stop hanging around with bullshit that doesn’t matter and make the most of the time I have left.” Over the past few years of loss, dislocation, and general global madness, I forgot about this and almost gave up – writing, yes, but even more so, life. Sure, I do things for the sake of the people I love, but in a way that thumbs my nose at the monumental gift that life truly is. Your story and, once again, your greater humanity in sharing it have triggered a change in me, and for that, I sincerely and ardently thank you.
Some readers said the essay helped them realize that moments of joy and rest can lead to resilience in the midst of suffering. If Amy was dealing with stage 4 cancer and could find this much light in her life, what was their excuse, anyway?
“Oh, how I cried and cried,” one reader said of reading Amy’s essay. “I then printed it out and placed it in my Bible. I’ll stay there, so when I’m ready to give up on life again, I’ll read it and move on.
But the message that touched Amy more than the others came from someone she knew, journalist Dania Akkad, who remembers an intervention Amy made on her behalf while she was working as a reporter for a newspaper Californian in the early 2000s. Akkad was an intern at the newspaper.
“We had a visit from a writing coach that summer,” Akkad recalls. “Long story short, you overheard me in the bathroom saying that he made advances toward me while I was in a meeting to discuss my career as a journalist (at least that’s what I thought !) You came out of the bathroom and said if I didn’t report it to management, you would.
“It all seemed so embarrassing and embarrassing and, well, it’s my fault!” » Akkad wrote. “Anyway, I went to management largely because you put the pressure on. However, many years later, I am so glad I did – and so grateful that you interceded at that time. It was a crossroads event that influenced the way I react to this kind of bullshit. A real educational moment. So thank you very much. And thank you also for writing so lucidly about your experience now.
Not all notes were equally beautiful. Inevitably, a few were unwelcome, including missives from ultra-religious people wishing that my wife, who was proudly Jewish, would be saved from hellfire. And she smiled at messages promoting quack remedies.
The many grateful responses prove that even today, in the age of online trolls and bot-generated fake comments, committed and thoughtful people can truly make a difference by reaching out, human to human.
She carried it with her in her final weeks as she sat with me to watch a great blue heron circle in the sky above Santa Cruz Harbor. Or pulling out your favorite chair and watching skateboarders, dog walkers and street basketball players from the other side of your picture window.
In this way, she embodies the spirit of her words. “I never had a to-do list,” she wrote. “Instead, I said ‘yes’ to life.”
washingtonpost
