Book : Chasing Daylight How My Forthcoming Death Transformed

-Titulo Original : Chasing Daylight How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life

-Fabricante :

McGraw Hill

-Descripcion Original:

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHASING DAYLIGHTHow My Forthcoming Death Transformed My LifeBy Eugene OKellyThe McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.Copyright © 2008 Eugene OKellyAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-0-07-149993-4ContentsA GiftThe Bottom LineThe Business of Dying is HardThe Best Death PossibleThe Good Good-ByeTransitionChasing Daylight By Corinne OKellyAfterword By Corinne OKellyA Readers GuideQuestions for DiscussionA Conversation with Corinne OkellyExcerptCHAPTER 1A GiftI was blessed. I was told I had three months to live. You think that to putthose two sentences back to back, I must be joking. Or crazy. Perhaps that Ilived a miserable, unfulfilled life, and the sooner it was done, the better.Hardly. I loved my life. Adored my family. Enjoyed my friends, the career I had,the big-hearted organizations I was part of, the golf I played. And Im quitesane. And also quite serious: The verdict I received the last week of May2005-that it was unlikely Id make it to my daughter Ginas first day ofeighth grade, the opening week of September-turned out to be a gift.Honestly.Because I was forced to think seriously about my own death. Which meant I wasforced to think more deeply about my life than Id ever done. Unpleasant as itwas, I forced myself to acknowledge that I was in the final stage of life,forced myself to decide how to spend my last 100 days (give or take a fewweeks), forced myself to act on those decisions.In short, I asked myself to answer two questions: Must the end of life bethe worst part? And, Can it be made a constructive experience-eventhe best part of life?No. Yes. Thats how I would answer those questions, respectively. I was able toapproach the end while still mentally lucid (usually) and physically fit (sortof), with my loved ones near.As I said: a blessing.Of course, almost no one thinks in detail about ones actual death. Until I hadto I didnt-not really. We feel general and profound anxiety about it, butfiguring out the nuts and bolts of how to make the best of ones last days, andthen how to ensure that one follows the planned course of action for the benefitof oneself and ones loved ones, are not typical habits of the dying, and mostcertainly not of the healthy and hearty. Some people dont think about deathbecause it comes suddenly and prematurely. Quite a few who die this way-ina car accident, say-had not yet even begun to think of themselves asmortal. My death, on the other hand, while somewhat premature (I was 53 at thetime of the verdict) could not be called sudden (anyway, you couldnt call itthat two weeks after the death sentence had sunk in), since I was informed quiteexplicitly that my final day on this Earth would happen during the 2005 calendaryear.Some people dont think about how to make the most of their last stage because,by the time their end has clearly come upon them, they are no longer in aposition, mental or physical, to make of their final days what they might have.Relief of pain is their primary concern.Not me. I would not suffer like that. Starting weeks before the diagnosis, whenatypical (if largely unnoticed) things began happening to me, I had no pain, notan ounce. Later, I was told that the very end would be similarly free of pain.The shadows that had begun very slowly to darken my mind would lengthen, just asthey do on the golf course in late afternoon, that magical time, my favoritetime to be out there. The light would flatten. The hole-the object of myfocus-would become gradually harder and harder to pick out. Eventually itwould be difficult even to name. Brightness would fade. I would lapse into acoma. Night would fall. I would die.Because of the factors surrounding my dying-my relative youth, mycontinued possession of mental facility and otherwise good physical health, myfreedom from daily pain, and the proximity of loved ones, most of whom werethemselves still in their prime-I took a different approach to my last 100days, one that require