Lucy

“Death, so familiar to me in my work, was now paying a personal visit.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“For much of his life, Paul wondered about death—and whether he could face it with integrity. In the end, the answer was yes. I was his wife and a witness.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“At those critical junctures, the question is not simply whether to live or die but what kind of life is worth living. Would you trade your ability--or your mother's--to talk for a few extra months of mute life? The expansion of your visual blind spot in exchange for the small possibility of a fatal brain hemorrhage? Your right hand's function to stop seizures? How much neurological suffering would you let your child endure before saying that death is preferable? Because the brain mediates our experience of the world, any neurosurgical problem forces a patient, and family, ideally with a doctor as a guide, to answer this question: What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“[H]e found poetry more comforting than Scripture—and his ability to forge from his life a cogent, powerful tale of living with death.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air