One thing that has surprised Julie about going through the process of watching herself die is how vivid her world has become. Everything that she used to take for granted produces a sense of revelation, as if she were a child again. Tastes—the sweetness of a strawberry, its juice dripping onto her chin; a buttery pastry melting in her mouth. Smells—flowers on a front lawn, a colleague’s perfume, seaweed washed up on the shore, Matt’s sweaty body in bed at night. Sounds—the strings on a cello, the screech of a car, her nephew’s laughter. Experiences—dancing at a birthday party, people-watching at Starbucks, buying a cute dress, opening the mail. All of this, no matter how mundane, delights her to no end. She’s become hyper-present. When people delude themselves into believing they have all the time in the world, she’s noticed, they get lazy.
She hadn’t expected to experience this pleasure in her grief, to find it invigorating, in a way. But even as she’s dying, she’s realized, life goes on—even as the cancer invades her body, she still checks Twitter. At first she thought, Why would I waste even ten minutes of the time I have left checking Twitter? And then she thought, Why wouldn’t I? I like Twitter! She also tries not to dwell on what she’s losing. “I can breathe fine now,” Julie says, “but it’ll get harder, and I’ll grieve for that. Until then, I breathe.”
Julie gives more examples of what helps when she tells people she’s dying. “A hug is great,” she says. “So is ‘I love you.’ My absolute favorite is just a plain ‘I love you.’”
“Did anyone say that?” I ask. Matt did, she says. When they found out she had cancer, his first words weren’t “We’ll beat this!” or “Oh, fuck!” but “Jules, I love you so much.” That was all she needed to know.
“Love wins,” I say, referencing a story Julie once told me about the time her parents went through a rough patch and separated for five days when Julie was twelve. By the weekend, they were back together, and when she and her sister asked why, her father looked at her mother with such affection and said, “Because at the end of the day, love wins. Always remember that, girls.”
Julie nods. Love wins.
“If I write this book,” she says, “maybe I’ll say that the best responses I’ve gotten have been from people who were genuine and didn’t edit themselves.” She looks at me. “Like you.”
I try to remember what I’d said when Julie told me she was dying. I remember feeling uncomfortable the first time, devastated the second. I ask Julie what she remembers me saying.
She smiles. “Both times you said the same thing, and I’ll never forget it, because I wasn’t expecting that from a therapist.”
I shake my head. Expecting what?
“You spontaneously said, in this quiet, sad voice, ‘Oh, Julie’—which was the perfect response, but it’s what you didn’t say that meant the most. You teared up, but I figured that you didn’t want me to see it, so I didn’t say anything.”
The memory takes shape in my mind. “I’m glad that you saw my tears, and you could have said something. I hope from now on, you will.”
“Well, now I would. I mean, now that we’ve done my obituary together, I think I’m pretty much an open book.”
A few weeks ago, Julie finished writing her obituary. We were in the midst of some important conversations at the time, talking about how she wanted to die. Who did she want with her? Where did she want to be? What would she want for comfort? What was she afraid of? What kind of memorial service or funeral did she want? What did she want people to know and when?
Even as she’d discovered hidden parts of herself since the cancer diagnosis—more spontaneity, more flexibility—she was still, at heart, a planner, and if she was going to have to contend with her early death sentence, she would do as much of it as she could the way she wanted.
In considering her obituary, we talked about what meant the most to her. There was her professional success and her passion for her research and her students. There was her Saturday-morning “home” at Trader Joe’s and the sense of freedom she found there. There was Emma, who, with Julie’s help in the financial-aid application process, was able to cut down her hours at Trader Joe’s so that she could attend college. There were the friends she had run marathons with and the ones she did book club with. At the top of the list was her husband (“The best person in the world to go through life with,” she said, “but also the best to go through death with”), her sister, and her nephew and newborn niece (Julie was their godmother). There were her parents and four grandparents—all of whom couldn’t understand how in a family with such longevity, Julie was dying so young.
“It’s like we’ve done therapy on steroids,” Julie said of everything that had happened since we met. “Like the way Matt and I say that we’re doing our marriage on steroids. We have to cram it all in as quickly as possible.” Julie realized, when she talked about cramming it all in, that if she was pissed off about having such a short life, it was only because it had been such a good one.
Which is why, in the end, after several drafts and revisions, Julie decided to keep her obituary simple: “For every single day of her thirty-five years,” she wanted it to read, “Julie Callahan Blue was loved.”
Love wins.
44
Boyfriend’s Email
I’m at my desk, working on my happiness book, slogging through another chapter. I motivate myself with this thought: If I turn in this book, next time I’ll get to write something that matters (whatever that is). The sooner I finish this, the sooner I can get myself back on fresh ground (wherever that is). I’m embracing uncertainty. And I’m actually writing the book.
My friend Jen calls, but I don’t pick up. Recently I’ve filled her in on the missing parts of my health situation, and she’s been helpful in the way Wendell has—not by finding a diagnosis but by helping me cope with a lack of one. I’ve been learning how to be okay with not being totally okay while also arranging consults with specialists who might take my condition more seriously. No more wandering-uterus doctors for me.
Right now, though, I have to finish this chapter—I’ve blocked out two hours to write. I type words and they appear on my screen, filling up page after page. I knock out the chapter the way my son does the occasional busywork at school—workmanlike, as the means to an end. I keep going until I get to the chapter’s last line, then give myself a reward: I can check email and call Jen! I’ll take a fifteen-minute break before moving ahead to the next chapter. The end is in sight—just one final section to go.
I’m chatting with Jen and scanning my emails when suddenly I gasp. In bold letters, Boyfriend’s name appears in my box. I’m amazed; I haven’t heard from Boyfriend in eight months, ever since I tried to get answers and brought pages of notes from those calls to Wendell’s office.
“Open it!” Jen says when I tell her, but I just stare at Boyfriend’s name. My stomach tightens, though in a different way than it did when I kept hoping he’d change his mind. It tightens because even if he were to say he’s had some sort of epiphany and wants to be together after all, I would, without question, say no. My gut is telling me two things—that I don’t want to be with him anymore and that, even so, the memory of what happened still stings. Whatever he has to say, it might upset me, and I don’t want to get sidetracked by this right now. I have to finish this book I care nothing about so I can write something I do care about. Maybe, I tell Jen, I’ll read Boyfriend’s email after I crank out another chapter.