A decade or so ago, a good friend, David, died of cancer. He was first diagnosed with lung cancer and operated upon immediately to remove the offending portion of his lung. The doctors were optimistic following the surgery and he followed their prescribed post-surgical treatments religiously. For several months things looked good and he returned to work with renewed vigor and an enhanced appreciation for life. Then, one day while I was standing in his office doorway, he complained of constant blurred eyesight. I asked him if perhaps some of the cancer medication he was still taking might be causing the problem, and he replied that he didn’t know but had an appointment with his doctor to find out.
When he returned to work the day following his doctor appointment, he told me that his lung cancer had metastasized to his brain. This was not good news and we both knew it. How bad the news actually was we didn’t learn for another week when he was told that the brain tumor appeared to be inoperable. The doctors resorted to targeted radiation in hopes of either eradicating the cancer or at least slowing its progress, and David – still insistent upon coming to work – would regale me after treatment sessions with stories about an iron brace affixed to his head to hold it steady throughout the course of radiation therapy. He made a joke of it, suggesting it was a medieval torture he had been delighted to undergo, laughing about how silly he must have looked.
Eventually, the cancer re-metastasized to his lungs, whereupon David elected to stop treatment and face the inevitable. In his case, the roulette wheel of death had dropped the ball into a red, cancerous slot. He was, he told me, relieved to know the manner of his death, reminding me that we all share a curiosity about both the means and timing of our deaths. He told me this during the first of a series of weekly lunches we began at his request, lunches whose purpose was to discuss his impending death and the things that had become important to him in the face of its urgent inevitability. He told me that most of his friends didn’t seem to know how to deal with the news and either avoided the subject of his death assiduously whenever they saw him or avoided seeing him altogether. He told me that while he understood their reaction, he felt isolated because of it.
By agreement, our lunches were focused on the subject of his impending death, although we did find some time during each for more frivolous subjects. At first I found it difficult to look a dying man in the eye and discuss his feelings, beliefs, and fears about the process. It wasn’t the first time I’d done so. A former partner had died of brain cancer and at our final lunch at a French restaurant, he’d drawn two arcs with his fork on the paper sheet covering the table – one rising up to the right and one arcing downward beneath the first; the rising arc, he said, was the path of everyone but him, and he alone was following the second. This lunch had occurred at least a decade prior to my lunches with David, at a time when my former partner and I were both middle-aged. His table-top drawing had remained in my memory because of the clear sense of a future lost which it had evoked.
My conversations with David were very different from the one I’d had with my former partner. For one thing, they stretched over several weeks, and, for another, they were detailed, wide-ranging, and not limited to a single image. David had no fear of death, having come to accept the inevitable. His acceptance allowed him to tell me what he hoped for following death and what he expected of me when the time came. I will not go into the details of our conversations because they were of the essence of personal privilege and privacy, but suffice it to say that they were some of the most interesting philosophical and practical conversations I have ever been privileged to share with anyone.
At the start of our conversations, I was hesitant. Our agreed subject matter, after all, is a difficult one at any time, but much more so when the conversation is had with someone who knows the manner of his death and has an extremely good inkling of when it will occur. But David instantly freed me from my hesitancy during the very first lunch by telling me he was grateful that I was willing to talk to him about such things and moving directly onto the topic at hand without hesitation.
And so began a cherished portion of my life. I soon realized that while I might be giving David the gift of a willing ear, he was giving me a far greater gift in return. He was showing me a path to the inevitable that was reasoned, rational, and thoughtful; he was leading the way forward and dropping helpful clues about how one might travel a necessarily lonely road with dignity and determination.
Promises were made by both of us during our lunches. He had some concerns about his wife and children following his death that I was able to help him with, and I promised him that I would follow him on his solitary journey as far as I could, and that I would continue joking with him to the end using the mutual cajolery that was our standard, shared conversational format. We agreed that the process of dying should be leavened with humor.
Of necessity, our lunches eventually came to an end as his health failed and travel to the restaurant became impossible. When I heard he was in the hospital and only had a day or two left to him, I resolved not to visit him there for the sake of his family’s needs. But the next day his son called and asked me to come to the hospital and spend time with David. It seemed that he, too, – even in his extremity – missed our conversations and desired yet one more. I quickly agreed to come, and left work immediately to honor my promise.
As luck would have it, I was wearing a tie that day for business reasons, an article of clothing I no longer wore unless absolutely compelled to do so by circumstance. When I entered his room, David was curled in a fetal position and breathing with difficulty with the aid of an oxygen mask – his lung cancer had won the race with the tumor resident in his brain. His eyes were closed, but his son assured me he was conscious. So I leaned over him, gently shook his shoulder and waved my tie at him, announcing that I had worn it in his honor. I quickly admitted to the fib, telling him I thomught he ought to have a good laugh on such a day. He replied: “Right to the end, huh?” When I assured him that I intended to honor my promise, he laughed and told me to knock it off because it hurt him to laugh.
That last conversation was short. He had little stamina left for anything but goodbye. Before I left, I hugged him as best I could given the angles, positions, and equipment involved. As I left the hospital I finally found the tears that had – until that moment – refused to come.
I was reminded of my conversations with David yesterday when a good friend called to tell me that he had just been diagnosed with an aggressive tumor and that he had elected not to engage in treatment given the nature of his diagnosis. Usually, first conversations in the face of such a grave announcement are limited because they are so wholly unexpected and startling. But I found that David had left me with a lasting gift; instead of shying away from the immensity of my friend’s news, I was able to have the beginnings of a rational conversation about death rather than retreating in the face of enormity. During the phone call, I told my friend about David and our time together in a similar situation; I believe the story helped both of us move beyond the respective tensions inherent in the effort of having to make and receive such grave news.
My friend is certain to face his death with dignity and courage, for that is the manner in which he has lived all of his life. He told me yesterday that he does not fear death, and I have good reason to believe him. He, too, will help me find my own eventual way, certain to provide me with a glimpse of yet another kind of integrity to be followed on my own path forward. I only hope I will be able to give something back to him in the time he has remaining. Whatever I am able to give him cannot begin to repay the debt I already owe him, or to compensate him for the knowledge he has yet to impart.
David has been close at hand these past few hours following my friend’s call, standing just on the other side of the curtain of gauze that separates life and death and reminding me through his spiritual presence of the gifts we shared with one another so many years ago. My thanks to him again for all that he gave to me – both the good memories and the vision of a right way forward.
