Book Review · Memoir · Paul Kalanithi

“What do you do when life is catastrophically interrupted?”

That is the question I kept asking myself as I closed this book for the second time.

When I first read it a few years ago, what I felt was boundless compassion and a faint sadness at the passing of such a gifted man. This time, those feelings were still there, but my understanding of death had gone one layer deeper. Perhaps it’s because I’m no longer at an age where I believe I have endless time and endless chances to be wrong. Recently, life brought some big changes and I had to make real choices. So I picked this book up once more.

When you know for certain that you will die, when your health declines day by day, when even hope no longer has the energy to sustain life, what do you do? Rage and resent, asking “why me”? Or give in and let things fall where they may? Sadly, the author is a real person, and he lived through exactly those days.

Above all, this is the memoir of a cancer patient. I’m not in his shoes, so I may never fully understand. But through his raw, bitter, torn-apart words, I could see the meaning of the days we are given to live.

In the end, the wounds of the past, or the glory of a richer future, are not the fuel that runs our daily lives. What carries us through each day is love for the people around us, faith in humanity, curiosity about the unknown, and the longing to take one step further than we did yesterday. And ultimately, only love, and the time we spend with the people we love, keeps a life alive the longest.

This is one of those books I don’t feel I have the right to review or judge, simply because I don’t feel I’m worthy of it. I am just someone who happened to hear a true life story.

By the final pages, my eyes were blurred with tears. I cried out of compassion. I cried out of fear, imagining myself in his place and realizing I would have no idea what to do. I cried in admiration for Lucy, his courageous wife, and with sorrow for baby Cady, whose father left just after she was born.

I met the name Lucy both in this book and in real life, and each time the person behind it was astonishingly brave. I’ve started to think it would be a beautiful name for a daughter, if I’m lucky enough to have one.

This book will always have a place on my shelf of “recommend to friends and family.”

Until the next post,

Thuy

---