As I glanced through the notes before the next call, I knew this would not be an easy conversation. She was a follow up patient, someone we had seen only a week earlier.
That day, I had to do what doctors dread saying the words clearly and honestly.
Her bowel cancer was advanced, widespread, and carried a poor prognosis. Continuing aggressive treatment for her head and neck cancer would only cause more suffering, without benefit. She already sensed this, but hearing it confirmed felt final, heavy, irreversible.
When I asked how she was, she answered with unexpected calm.
“I have accepted my illness,” she said.
“And I know I am going to die soon. What is hardest is the waiting.”
She spoke of the uncertainty, not knowing how, or when. The endless waiting that made her restless, unable to plan, unable to settle.
She had always dreamed of going to Orlando. But travel insurance was impossible.
Her husband, kind and determined, had even offered to take a loan, to go anyway, to deal with consequences later. But she could not bring herself to leave behind debt for him and their young boys.
So she thought of a UK trip instead.
Then there was her elderly mother, frail, frightened, unwilling to let her daughter out of sight now that time felt so fragile.
“The wait,” she said softly,
“is killing me more than the disease.”
I arranged for her to speak to our psychologist and counsellor. I did what I could, professionally and appropriately.
Yet her words stayed with me long after the call ended.
We are trained to care without getting too close, to stay steady and detached.
But sometimes, the human part refuses to be silent.
I found myself wondering what would I do if I were her.
Would I travel anyway
Or would I slowly withdraw, conserving energy, waiting.
I do not know the answer.
What I do know is this.
That evening, I finished a small painting I had abandoned nearly two years ago.
And the next day, I began decluttering my house, drawers, cupboards, forgotten corners.
Why keep things we may never use.
As the clutter disappeared, something else shifted too.
There was more space, not just in my home, but in my mind.
In Japanese philosophy, there is a word called ikigai.
It means a reason to live, a quiet purpose that makes waking up worthwhile.
Not always grand dreams or distant plans, but small acts that anchor us to the present moment.
Perhaps when the future becomes uncertain, ikigai changes shape.
It becomes finishing a painting.
Letting go of excess.
Being present rather than waiting.
Death, when it brushes past us, does not always arrive with fear.
Sometimes it gently teaches us how to live.
To hold less.
To do the things we have postponed.
To make room, for meaning, for now, for what truly matters.
Comments