FALLING FORWARD

I died on my 42nd birthday. I can tell you from my own personal experience that it doesn’t get any more final than reading your own obituary. Most unimportant people like me don’t have any influence over what theirs will say. I had always thought obituaries should be written for the living. After all, as far as I know, a dead person can’t read. I also thought it slightly pompous that some of my patients thought they were important enough to craft their own obituaries well before their impending demise. But I was wrong. Thanks to some good advice from a very special friend, I was fortunate enough to have the wherewithal and the opportunity to write my own.

I reached under my bed and found a beautifully handcrafted Koa box. I sat staring at it, admiring the craftsmanship as memories filled my mind and a rare tear ran down my cheek. I opened it and pulled out a wrinkled and water-stained cocktail napkin. On it was the obituary I had written for myself so long ago. I could barely decipher what it said from the now smeared and faded ink, but the words will forever be etched in my mind:

Award-winning oncologist Dr. Olivia Marie Garvin died of unnatural causes on her 42nd birthday. Dr. Garvin ran into a wall at full speed. She never saw it coming. She saved hundreds of lives, but she could not save herself. She is survived by no one and nothing. There will be no funeral, no prayers, and no service. Her request is to be completely forgotten.

Award-winning. Everyone who has ever won an award of some sort always puts that phrase on everything they do for the rest of their lives. It doesn’t matter what award you’ve won – it could have been the worst award you can possibly win, perfect attendance – it’s still an award. Although I was one of those kids that did win the perfect attendance award in high school, among other real awards grounded in academia, I was most proud of the awards I had received in my career. Last year, I won the B.J. Kennedy Award and Lecture for Scientific Excellence in Geriatric Oncology. The huge 36” rectangular pine frame hung prominently in my office behind my desk – you couldn’t possibly miss it. It was like a billboard about me. It wasn’t my idea to hang it there, but I have to admit, I didn’t mind the recognition. It was one of those things that reminded me daily that I was doing the right thing with my life. Or so I thought.

Unnatural causes. People who die due to unfortunate incidents tend to mask the true cause of death in their obits. The death of my soul was due to a truly unfortunate incident. I did mention that I ran into a wall at full speed, but that was vague at best. There simply isn’t enough space to list the causes of my death in a typical obit. I decided that would be this book. Thanks for reading my extended obituary – I promise not to bore you.

She saved hundreds of lives, but she could not save herself. Most physicians are terrible patients. We’re harsh and judgmental know-it-alls. We dish out advice and counsel others until our voices are strained, but we seldom follow our own imparted wisdom. We’ve spent half of our lives in school, so how can we not assume we know everything?

She is survived by no one and nothing. There will be no funeral, no prayers, and no service. Her request is to be completely forgotten. It was true. I had no children. No husband. No surviving parents, that I was aware of. No aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews – no one. Fortunately, I had a few really good friends. A typical physician’s schedule doesn’t allow for much socializing, other than a few holiday parties and a seminar here and there. But who wants to hang out with other doctors? That would be like talking to yourself. Half the new recruits were Indian or Pakistani. Brilliant men for the most part, with surprisingly very few women. Truly nice gentlemen. Unfortunately, most of them had really bad poorly grown wiry mustaches. Oooh, I can’t stand mustaches, nonetheless bad mustaches. I couldn’t seem to get past that.

Obviously, Olivia Marie Garvin is not literally dead. I can say without hesitation that every single dead person I’ve ever encountered is not capable of reading her own obituary, and I have certainly seen quite a few dead people in my years as an oncologist. Most of the folks I had chanced upon in my own life up until my 42nd birthday were quickly approaching death. I would help them all I humanly could, using fabulous technology and all the advances science could offer, but sadly, my intervention was usually not much more than a delay of the inevitable. Men and women in the twilight of their lives – some in their prime, many with small children who depended on them for guidance and safety – were living out their death sentence as best they could. With as many people as I’ve counseled in my career, I still cannot imagine what it would be like to keep a happy face knowing my own trip would soon be ending. Looking back, I admire their bravery. Their optimism. Their faith – in God, and in me. My admiration may have been the catalyst for the changes I made in my own life.

More than anyone, I accept the fact we all must die. I would rather it be a complete surprise. And I got my wish. I received the surprise of my life on my 42nd birthday.

My metaphoric death was a transition in life. I realized I had been sleepwalking for more than twenty years. As it is for most, my marriage, my career, and my entire existence had been on autopilot. The same exact routine morning after morning, day after day, year after year. Sure, I smiled a lot and laughed once in a while. I whole-heartedly enjoyed the caustic beauty of a sunrise, the overwhelming smell of fresh jasmine, and the bitter taste of a warm cup of Earl Grey, no sugar. But being on the Dean’s List during my entire college experience, earning countless degrees, and all the awards and certificates that adorned the walls of my office failed to enlighten me.

School doesn’t teach you what’s truly important. Ironically, I learned more about life from a surfing instructor than I did from any teacher, institution, or seminar I ever attended. For the first time in my life, I was awake. I became one of the enlightened few who escaped the mundane box in which most people spend their entire lives. I realized that we don’t have to hunt for miracles – they were omnipresent. Miracles were unfolding constantly and everywhere, in everything we see, and can’t see. The fact that nothing but energy comprises nearly every bit of matter we can perceive – and that a brick never forgets to be a brick. And that non-descript blade of grass that somehow knows how to create sugar from sunlight and that it should be green, narrow, and grow towards the sky. And that single drop of dew – an unlikely and fragile concoction of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen bonded together at the perfect temperature range that makes everything we know possible. The energy created from nothing more than organic matter that somehow allows a lucky human heart to beat over two billion times – sometimes fast, when excited or scared, and other times more slowly. Even a malignant cancer cell is a miracle. It isn’t aware that it’s a bad thing, but it’s alive. It grows. It somehow reproduces and knows to take advantage of a situation that will serve it well. Suddenly, everything I saw, heard, touched, or felt was no less than extraordinary. I wondered how humanity had strayed so far from the realization that everything we do or know is no less than miraculous.

Hopefully, it won’t – or didn’t – take you 42 years to figure out that you’re sleepwalking and not making the most of your life. I recommend writing your obit as early as you can. I guarantee it will be worth every word.