What I Learned About Living from Dying of Cancer

Dying inevitably follows living. What makes for a good death in a just and sustainable world? I think about this a lot these days. Four years ago, at age fifty, I was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer. Active and fit, it took a collapsed lung and two broken ribs before I realized I had a big problem, the ultimate challenge of life: facing my own death.

In the first weeks after learning I was terminally ill, I wondered, “Will I face this in my heart or in my head? In my head, it is a storyline I can make interesting, wise, and abstract. In my heart, it is a constant tremor radiating from my stomach.” As the first months of terror subsided, I began to adapt to my “new normal.” My medical team advised, “You must start living as if the next three months are your last. When you are still alive at the close, make a new three-month plan.” I resolved to hope and dream and build in smaller allocations of time.

I made huge shifts in my life, severing two critical anchor points. I moved to the city from the small town that had been my home for 25 years—my isolated existence in the woods seemed too daunting for the emotional swings of terminal cancer. I retired from the organization I had founded and that had been my life’s work for 18 years. I knew the long hours and stress of the job I loved would deplete the strength I needed for cancer treatment.

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