Paul Kalanithi could have been anything. He was a gifted individual who excelled in both the arts and the sciences, earning, among other degrees, a Master of Arts in literature from Stanford University. His lot, however, was to be a medical doctor because he eventually ended up at Yale School of Medicine. Kalanithi’s life could have continued to be storied as he was a rising star in the field of neurosurgery; however, in his early thirties, just as he was beginning to catch his stride in a would-be successful career, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer. In 2015 at just thirty-seven years old, he died leaving behind a wife and a one-year-old daughter. His memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, tracks his meteoric rise and tragic battle with the disease that would take him from this world. His wife, Lucy, would write the epilogue.
Kalanithi came from a Christian family, but like many twenty-somethings, he experimented with different ideas not exactly in keeping with the faith of his childhood. Eventually, he would return to his Christian roots, which is why it is not surprising to see his reflection on life and the death that was fast approaching sprinkled with scripture. On coming to terms with his own inescapable mortality, he writes, “Everyone succumbs to finitude. I suspect I am not the only one who reaches this pluperfect state. Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way, they belong to the past. The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present. Money, status, all the vanities the preacher of Ecclesiastes described, hold so little interest: a chasing after wind, indeed.” When we think of our lives, we are tempted to rest in the notion that it is one long and unending trajectory upwards. A ladder. We go from milestone to milestone – graduation, college, a first job, marriage, children – until, if we are lucky to live so long, we run out. And then what? We are left with a pair of questions: What was worth it, and what was a waste of my energy? For Kalanithi, the answer came in stark relief as his final contribution to his memoir was a chapter written about his infant daughter, Cady. His body will die as will each of ours. That is what it means to live in a fallen world. But there is something that human beings create together that transcends natural law. It may even be called sacred. Kalanithi continues, “I hope I’ll live long enough that she (his daughter) has some memory of me. Words have a longevity I do not. I had thought I could leave her a series of letters – but what would they say? I don’t know what this girl will be like when she is fifteen; I don’t even know if she’ll take to the nickname we’ve given her. There is perhaps only one thing to say to this infant, who is all future, overlapping briefly with me, whose life, barring the improbable, is all but past. That message is simple: When you come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.”
I would not want to suggest that Kalanithi, at this point, has revealed some secret about the meaning of life, but I would suggest that he takes a robust step in that direction by reflecting on his relationship with his daughter.
God, to a Christian, is not merely a rule-maker and rule-enforcer. That would make us subjects to a Divine king. On the contrary, God is our Heavenly Father. Just as Jesus Christ Himself cried out from the cross, “Abba!” we, too, are encouraged to see God as Abba, which, loosely translated, means “Daddy.” It is familial. Tender. It suggests a close relationship, not a contractual arrangement. While we may not all be parents, we are all someone’s child, so, at least in theory, we have access to this way of relating. As a parent myself, however, this hits me in a special and profound way, and, if I am honest, Kalanithi’s words about his daughter delivered a gut-punch of emotion. Why do we do anything if not to lift up others, especially our children? Kalanithi may have accomplished quite a lot in his short life, but in the literal end, all that mattered what his daughter who, likely, could not even say, “Daddy.” His joy was in the immediate present. No more making plans. No more setting goals. Happiness was in the right now.
So perhaps the takeaway is this: we can appreciate the milestones. We can look forward to the celebratory parties. But the reality is that all we really have is the here and now and the ability to decide who gets to be with us in it. “Even if I am dying,” Kalanithi writes, “until I actually die, I am living.” Our exit from this world will come to pass. It is why scripture refers to our physical bodies as tents. On this side of paradise, they were only meant to be temporary. But until then, here we are. At this moment. A happy overlap if we let it.
https://www.amazon.com/When-Breath-Becomes-Paul-Kalanithi/dp/081298840X
