Last night, my phone started buzzing. “Turn on the TV!” said my uncle. “Did we know about this?!!” asked my sister-in-law Emily. “Tonight’s Jeopardy!” wrote CoJ contributor Kelly Dawson, along with a photo she snapped in her living room:
On the screen, the Jeopardy prompt was, “Dying of lung cancer, Paul Kalanithi attempted to answer what makes life worth living in ‘When Breath Becomes’ this.”
Of course, I immediately called my sister, Lucy. Long-time readers will know that she and Paul were married for eight years before he died in 2015. She helped shepherd his memoir — When Breath Becomes Air — to publication the following year.
On the phone, Lucy and I first laughed about the game show itself. Can you imagine if someone asked the question, “What is air?” And you answered, “Dying of lung cancer, Paul Kalanithi attempted to answer what makes life worth living in ‘When Breath Becomes’ this.” A truly wild answer, haha.
But my sister was touched and happy that Paul’s memoir is still part of the cultural conversation. “One of the things that really surprised me after Paul died was that he actually died,” she said in a recent Big Salad issue (gift link). “He’d had late-stage cancer for two years, and I even knew he was going to die that very day, but when someone actually dies, they just disappear. They just vanish. It felt so shocking to me.”
We always visit Paul’s grave when we visit San Francisco, and Lucy and her daughter go regularly with friends and family, especially on days like New Year’s Eve or Paul’s birthday. “Sometimes I go alone, especially when I don’t feel like myself,” she told me. “I’ll lie on him, and then I’ll feel better. On our wedding anniversary, I’ll bring him a lemon from our lemon tree.”
Did you see the Jeopardy episode yesterday? And are you missing anyone today? xoxo
P.S. How to write a condolence note, and what do you think happens when you die?
(Thanks to Kelly Dawson for the real-time photo!)
