The Discussion Group for Mortals
Authors: Kathryn Cornett Heekin
Journal: Journal of Clinical Oncology (2006)

“Late–middle-aged, bald, single-breasted woman seeking people interested in talking about death and dying.” This was the way Jaci wanted the advertisement to run for the discussion group she wanted me to put together at our Cancer Wellness Center (Northbrook, IL). We laughed. Something about wanting to do this seemed absurdly important and necessary, but hopelessly painful and daunting. Only the bravest need apply. Jaci’s breast cancer had metastasized and she had been coming into the center to talk to me for about a year. She knew she was dying. But one day she came in and said, “I’m done. I don’t need to talk to you anymore. I’m really okay. I’m not afraid to die. But I want to talk about dying with other people. I want to know what they think about how to do it, and where they think we’re going. And I want you to start a group, and I want you to do it now, because I haven’t got much time.” That’s when she brought in her ad, fully recognizing the difficulty of what she was asking me to do. But we began. She began by approaching a couple of people she knew from other classes at the center. And I began by trying to find the right tone to make the subject one that people would be able to respond to positively. Despite our temptation to brazenly run Jaci’s ad, we knew that our decisions about describing the group would influence who might join and even whether they would join. Luckily, what to name the group came to light right away. While walking across the library of our center, I spotted The Handbook for Mortals on a table and thought instantly, that’s it. This wasn’t to be a group about terminal illness, but about being human and finite. Dying is a journey we all make, and we can learn from talking about it. A group for mortals is for everybody. After finding the name and considering our purpose, we then had to decide how the group would proceed, and it seemed appropriate to continue in the same way Jaci and I had worked for the last year. It had served her well. We had occasionally read a book and shared our thoughts on it. Jaci had brought in poetry she had written and sometimes we talked about her dreams. Earlier that year, I had introduced her to Tibetan Buddhist philosophy through the writings of Pema Chodron (When Things Fall Apart and The Places That Scare You), because I had found her work helpful when managing fear and anxiety. One of the novels we read and talked about was Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I suggested it to her for its pursuit of the religious and spiritual questions that she had also asked, and for its confrontation with the nature of reality. That work of fiction became Jaci’s metaphor for living with cancer. She said, “It’s [my cancer is] exactly like being on a life raft in the middle of the ocean with a Bengal tiger.” In fact, a page of the novel, which begins, “I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life,” became a kind of warrior’s cry for the purpose of the group; to shine a light on fear so that it might be wrestled into a manageable place. We would turn to literature, philosophy, and spirituality to inform our thinking about death, and to influence our explorations into our personal beliefs. Films were included. And finally, we turned to current journalism, to give us the latest information from hospitals, doctors, and leaders in dealing with illness and dying. We wanted to know the painful truth to the extent it was possible, as well as to find what would heal the fearful psyche and the body in pain. We wanted to know the truth, but we also wanted to be consoled, to be able to transcend, to believe and be comforted, if possible. This was a tall order. Right away, Jaci found several people from other classes she attended at the center, and she asked them to join us. Fairly quickly, a group formed and grew with time. From the beginning, we practiced an open format for each meeting. We decided we would find out what the members hoped for, wanted, and expected of the group. We met once a week initially, to get to know each other, and to get a sense of the amount of time we needed together, combined with the intensity of what we would discuss. We also needed to agree on the time we would require to do the reading or see the movie we chose. Most importantly, other than using movies, literature, articles, and so on to stimulate discussion, we decided that we would honor the needs of the moment. This decision, to keep our format open, proved to be an extremely fortunate one. It was one of the manydecisions made based on the underlying intensity of our reason for existing as a group: the fact that From the Cancer Wellness Center, Northbrook, IL.