Terminal Illness in Someone You Love, and Writing.
By: Alexandra Rappaport
Tags: Cancer, Death And Dying, Writing, Terminal Illness, Coping With Loss

Life has its unexpected, painful, and unfair ways. But it’s those certain things we have absolutely no control over, that are the hardest to accept. I still remember when I was a kid, and learned about the concept and the inescapability of death. It was impossible to imagine that this was the ultimate fate of every being; this was the one outright certainty we could be offered. Since then, I still sometimes wonder how we go on after someone we love dies. Somehow the sun sinks and the stars shine in the same way they did the day before.

Recently, my uncle was diagnosed with a very rare terminal illness. One thing that has always bonded us is our love of writing. When the diagnosis first came, I found myself helplessly cursing anything I could. But then: he started sending weekly writings, in emails, detailing whatever it is he wanted to: short stories, snippets, poems. Some detailing what he’s going through, and some totally fictional stories. And just when I was feeling so unbelievably lost and angry at the world, his writing made something very clear to me. At the crux of it: life is beautiful.

No, no, sorry, that’s cliche and not what I mean. What I mean is that his words, and the act of writing alone, is a beautiful, unadulterated form. It’s beautiful because it is fixed, despite all else. It can’t be touched by death. And it isn’t beautiful because of anything flowery — not even because of the language itself, necessarily. But his stories, his poetry, his words, at their very simplest, just as he put them down, as he pieced them together, whether carefully or not… There is nothing in this world as long lasting, nothing as plainly and completely made up of him.

So it’s not really life itself that is beautiful, though of course it can be. It’s the human being himself. It’s the human condition itself. Writing is one of the most human things we can do, and reading someone else’s writing lets us right into the core of that being. Not the entirety of course, maybe a minuscule part. But nonetheless it’s a closeness that is unlike anything else. It’s saying, I’ve poured a bit of my heart out, or a bit of my brain out, and I would like you to see, I would like to invite you in.

What I’m trying to say is, his writing brings me peace. I know it brings him some peace as well. This feels like the epitome of uncertainty. If his writings were fictional, I’d be fed up with the ever-changing plot by now; “definitive” news changes constantly — what are we really to believe? Can we trust good news? We ultimately want to know: what is the answer? How does this play out? The problem is, it’s not fictional. We don’t know.

So, yes. His life has changed dramatically, and in turn mine. And though there is more to life than writing, sure, it is maybe the most sincere act we as human beings can do. I think of him every day with hopefulness that he will get the most and the best out of the rest of his life. Even on the days with bad news, even on days with the worst news, his writing gives me hope. Because the protagonist does, in the end, always triumph.

The best we can do is try to live our lives like a naive kid, who believes we’ll never die. To experience life in the fullest way we can, while we can.

And hopefully, write some of it down.