WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR.

 WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

PAUL KALANITHI.

Photo credit : New York times images

"And so it's not all that useful to spend time thinking about the future–that is, beyond lunch" - Paul Kalanithi.

But what really is time to a dying man?.

WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR is a memoir /autobiography by Paul who is a lover of literature and science.He was a neurosurgeon at the time of his death.

The book has always been on my radar but if i am being honest i really struggled reading it the first two times i got a hold of it.I would pick it up and drop it after the first chapter.I , however,got a grasp of it at the beginning of August and i finally delved into it.It was good.

At 36 years of age,Paul is diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.A terminal disease that forces him to restructure the trajectory of his life.One minute he is a doctor and the next he is the patient.In a flash ,he is confronted with grappling  who he wanted and imagined himself to be and who he has to be.It is a matter of time and identity,and in all of it he has to come to terms with his mortality.

"Nobody has it coming."

"My life had been building potential, potential that would now go unrealized.I had planned to do so much ,I had come so close.I was physically debilitated,my imagined future and personal identity collapsed,and i faced the same existential quandaries my patients faced.The lung cancer diagnosis was confirmed.My carefully planned and hard-won future no longer existed.Death,so familiar to me in my work,was now paying a personal visit.Here we were, finally face-to-face,and yet nothing about it seemed recognizable.Standing at the crossroads where i should have been able to see and follow the footprints of the countless patients i had treated over the years,i saw instead only a blank,a harsh vacant, gleaming white desert,as if a sandstorm had erased all trace of familiarity."

The book is written in two parts.The 1st part is all about Paul as a student and a doctor and the 2nd part is him as patient.I must say his academic qualifications are very impressive.His experience as a doctor and later as a patient make the book an interesting read.His mastery of literature and science wove in so beautiful to give the two perspectives great insights.A book that tells about time and what it means to a dying man.

"The fact of death is unsettling.Yet there is no way to live."

"When there's no place for the scalpel,words are the surgeon's only tool."

"What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?"

When breath becomes air is a commentary of what makes life beautiful.When you have to figure out how you have to live with the time left.You know you have a limited amount of time left but you do not know the exact time left.

At the end of part 2 ,he writes a letter to his daughter. At the very end of that letter is this beautiful message.

"When you come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been,and done,and meant to the world,do not,i pray, discount that you filled a dying man's days with a sated joy,a joy unknown to me in all my prior years,a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests ,satisfied.In this times,right now,that is an enormous thing."

If you are looking for an emotionally impactful book,then this should be a choice.

That's it for this week.I'll see you on the next one.Stay safe folks.

Esther Mwelu,

1/9/2022.

NOTE.

As i read the book,i couldn't help but remember an engage talk youtube video.If and when you can,visit @EngageTalk and search the episode Make Time now or regret later by Caroline Mutoko.