'Sometime in the last eighteen months, it has become my mission to bring death into my conversations and hopefully show those around me that it needn’t be so bad.'
. And yet, maybe I still harbor the notion that I’ll outwit the disease and live into my nineties as my mother and grandmother did.From the day of my diagnosis, humor seemed to pop up out of nowhere. When we stopped at a mall on the way home from the doctor’s, seeking retail distraction from the magnitude of what we’d just learned, a clerk asked how my day was going. I had to work hard to keep from collapsing in laughter. “Fine,” I said, refraining from adding, “except for the fatal diagnosis.
This is part of what has drawn me to being a writer. On the page one can say anything. In fact, it is a writer’s job to say aloud what others are trying to ignore; it is a writer’s duty to surprise and provoke.What I have discovered in the last year and a half is that death is a topic that most people would rather not discuss — and so, being who I am, I often bring it up. “After I’m dead … ” I have taken to saying not infrequently, and my statement is met with awkward chuckling.
I often feel playful and antic these days, gesturing with my own invented sign language or squealing at high volume, because that is the only sound I can make. Doing these things makes me feel alive, and it reminds others that I’m present and, though I can’t speak, I still have a zest for life. A friend of mine — someone with whom I’ve taken to exchanging punches and friendly insults — commented that I’m approaching death as Charlie Chaplin would.
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