In this week’s reading Will begins the chapter by telling us about David Rohde, who was taken by the Taliban and was a friend of Mary Anne. She had hoped and prayed that he would escape to find out that he had eventually escaped in late June. For their next book they read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Will does not want Mary Anne to die without having done certain things, for example many people told her that she had to read the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on multiple occasions (280). Before they begin to read the book Mary Anne’s doctors tell her that her condition is becoming worse. On page 281, Will says, “We’re all in the end-of-our-life book club, whether we acknowledge it or not; each book we read may well be the last, each conversation the final one.”
In August of my junior year of high school, at the time my 62 year old grandfather was diagnosed with what doctors originally thought was throat cancer. Him and my grandma have always had hundreds of friends, both have amazing careers, traveled constantly and basically never settled down. He was ALWAYS the life of the party and there was always at least one person who knew who he was wherever you went, it was crazy. As we were all under the assumption that he had a curable form none of us thought much about it until his third checkup. He had the rarest form of thyroid cancer that .02% of the world population has ever been diagnosed with. Needless to say there was no cure. He gradually began to get worse and we all knew it was just a matter of time. He was the guy that you would think was going to outlive everyone, and he was always a firm believer in “quality or quantity.” He turned down the option to put a trache in his throat and stopped radiation. Having a job in a field where patients pass away on a weekly basis it was a miracle to see that he had “accepted” it quite quickly. He had everything in order for my grandma and was ready, and never let anyone help him or try and do something because even though he knew we all love him, he was stubborn and wanted to do everything on his own. He eventually passed away November of that same year the Thursday before Thanksgiving. There were over 400 people at his funeral and it was an almost eerie thing to see so many people there and it made me realize that no matter how many flaws a person can have it can change how you see them knowing that they will not be there much longer.
Will realized he did not have much time left with his mom and knew that he had to help out live out her final days. He knew that the day was coming quickly.
Do you know or have you known anyone who has had an illness such as cancer and helped them live out their last day? If not, if you were in Will’s shoes how would you help a loved one live out their last days?