Sunday, October 23, 2016

A year to live

The hospital where L is has chalk boards in the lobby where people are invited to write what they would do if they had one year to live. I remember reading in the papers that a very brave terminally ill man chronicled his last year, and perhaps this initiative is part of that book project.

Most people wrote about doing this, seeing that, bucket list stuff.


All well and good but all that doesn't not take into account that a person with a year to live is often already gravely ill and usually already in functional decline and bedridden. Such a patient is not going to travel.


I look at all those well-meaning and well-intentioned comments and I wonder how many of them really thought through the physicalities of life's last year. Because if so, most comments would be about overcoming anger, unfairness, regret and not doing stuff.

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