
At 31, I have just weeks to live. Here's what I want to pass on - asp_net
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/07/terminal-cancer-live-cancer-life-death
======
jcims
My wife passed this year from cancer. Looking back we had no idea how close we
were to the end, and in the last few weeks her beautiful mind was influenced
by the disease. I’m sure someone on HN is going through this at least
adjacently and my recommendation is to not wait to the end to have important
conversations. For those that aren’t going through this now, maybe for a
little while live life like you are...it might inform your priorities and
perspective.

My 17 year old daughter was already dealing with a life-altering chronic
disease and losing her mom plus all of this pandemic bullshit has really made
a mess. She broke down crying last night struggling over the idea of death and
that everything seems to be pitted against her. It’s hard to know exactly what
to say in those moments, maybe some of these words from a person at the
doorstep will help her.

For what it’s worth we do have her seeing both a counselor and a psychiatrist
but that only goes so far...at the end of the day it’s you and your thoughts
staring at the ceiling while you’re trying to get to sleep for the 5am shift
tomorrow.

~~~
war1025
> Looking back we had no idea how close we were to the end

This rings very true for me.

My dad died of brain cancer going on five years ago now.

He was diagnosed in 2014. They were clear the prognosis was not good. One or
two years at best.

They removed the tumor as soon as they found it, and he returned basically to
normal. There was a weird settling in of what it all meant and treatments that
were meant to stall things a while.

But since the tumor was small, he was able to function and be basically his
old self.

We had our first daughter in the fall of 2015. He was there to meet her.
Everything felt like it was looking up.

Three weeks later, on my first day back to work, I got a call at 10:30. "The
cancer is back." I took the day off.

At Christmas, he was definitely starting to act goofy and be more forgetful.
We'd have to distract him so he didn't try to go plow the driveway or do
things like that.

It became a question of "do we go up every weekend, or can we take this
weekend off?"

And then at the beginning of February things started getting really bad and my
mom moved him into a nursing home in town. That lasted for a little less than
a week I think. Then it was clear this was the end.

So we came up in the middle of the week. Sat by his bedside for hours on end.
Held his hand.

My dad had two things he'd always say about dying:

1\. When someone comes to die, they need someone to hold their hand.

2\. People need permission to die. Otherwise they will hang on way longer than
they otherwise would.

So I held his hand for a couple days. And then on maybe the third evening, it
became pretty clear he was deteriorating.

So I leaned over, kissed him on the head, told him that he'd done a great job
raising me and my brother, and that it was okay and we'd be here till the end.

And then we watched him die. I think it was about 4am when he finally passed.

I never remember what day it was, but I do remember that Lent had just started
and he died the morning of Transfiguration Sunday. Which the internet tells me
was Feb 7, 2016.

There's a Deathcab for Cutie song, "Love is watching someone die." It's the
truth. You have to love someone a lot to be there through that.

Anyway, to come back around, it all just went so much faster than you think it
would. Especially towards the end.

It took a little over a month for "Dad's acting funny again" to turn into "Dad
died last night".

~~~
yodsanklai
> It took a little over a month for "Dad's acting funny again" to turn into
> "Dad died last night".

I lost my mother from lung cancer so I can relate.

My dad on the other hand died without notice. I got a message on my phone one
day when I was at work. It was a cop from my father's town. They didn't tell
me why they were calling, but I knew something happened to my father because
he was living on the edge. I took the day off and went home to call them back.
He died a few days before at his home.

He was too young to die, but I think it was the best possible death, for him
and for us. We didn't have a chance to "say good bye", but it doesn't really
matter in the end.

The worst part of dying is anticipating death. I wish I could die
accidentally.

~~~
jcims
I agree. I got a similar call that my dad was killed at work when I was in my
early 20s. Due to the circumstances I'm not convinced it wasn't intentional on
his part, and in some odd ways I get a bit of relief from that. It was
devastating to me, but watching my wife and the mother of my children go
through a tortuous 26 months of treatments, unrelenting pain, cycles of hope
and despair, various indignities and ultimately passing in a confused state
was orders of magnitude worse.

~~~
dmerks
Similarly, the despair and agony is really what hit me most. Last autumn, my
father began experiencing occasional cramps in one leg after a regular 75k
bike ride. During the following month, the pain gradually spread throughout
his body and increased in frequency, seemingly for no apparent reason, based
on medical tests and scans. He slowly stopped eating as his body was being
consumed day and night: he lost healthy weight at a rate of one pound per day.
As muscle weakness spread and as he lost his faculty to walk, he grew steadily
delirious with pain and lack of sleep. By the 1st of December, he was in
hospital full time undergoing a barrage of tests to no avail; a diagnosis of
ALS was given mid-month. During the following week, he spoke his last words.
In the throes of his body collapsing, he would tear out IV and catheter. At
the rate at which his situation was deteriorating, feeding tube and intubation
coupled with restraints appeared cruel. He passed before the end of the year.

------
esemor
”But everybody dies, and there will always be places and experiences missing
from anyone’s life – the world has too much beauty and adventure for one
person to see.”

Damn gut punch...

~~~
apricot
I remember precisely when I had this particular epiphany. I was 12 years old,
in love with books, and thanks to my parents who had signed a form, I had just
gotten my first library card for the real (read: non-kiddie) section of the
public library. Awed by the sheer number of tall bookshelves, intoxicated by
the library smell and my newfound source of knowledge, I asked the librarian
how many books they had, she said more than 100,000. I was duly impressed. But
then I started thinking, and did some arithmetic on a piece of scrap paper.

And I realized that even if I read one book a day for the rest of my life, I
would only be able to read a fraction of all the books on the shelves. Right
there in the same room with me was provably unattainable knowledge. I could
decide to read any book, but I could not read all of them. If I decided to
read this book, then that other book would remain forever unread. Years before
I would be able to put the words on it, I had stumbled upon a kind of
incompleteness theorem, and I started to understand how small one's life
actually is. This thought never left me.

~~~
sizzle
I felt like this but towards reading all of wikipedia.

------
dhsysusbsjsi
The nicest bit for me was where he talked about growing old being a privilege
and not to lament every grey hair and wrinkle. Puts it in perspective.

~~~
goodcanadian
As I often say, "Growing old sucks, but it is better than the alternative."*

*I can't take credit. I got it from someone else, but I don't remember who.

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
Thing is, we don't quite know about the alternative. The undiscovered country
from whose bourn no traveller returns and all that.

~~~
rrwright
Act 3 Scene 1 of Hamlet, by William Shakespeare:
[https://www.sparknotes.c](https://www.sparknotes.c)

------
kashyapc
"Meditating on death" and "premeditation of future ills" is a big theme in
Stoicism (and the broader 'Hellenistic Philosophy'). Seneca's letters have
many different exhortations on "preparing for death". Some choice quotes:

• "Many people grasp and hold on to life, like those caught by a flash flood
who grasp at weeds and brambles. Most are tossed about between the fear of
death and the torments of life: they do not want to live but do not know how
to die. Cast off your solicitude for life, then, and in doing so make life
enjoyable for yourself. No good thing benefits us while we have it unless we
are mentally prepared for the loss of it." — Seneca

• "Epicurus says 'It is a fine thing to learn death thoroughly.' Perhaps you
think it is a waste of time to learn something you will need to use only once.
But that is the very reason we ought to rehearse: if we cannot test whether we
know it, we should be learning it always." — Seneca riffing on Epicurus (not
to be confused with _Epictetus_ , a Stoic; he even has a discourse titled
"Against Epicurus")

• "As the water clock does not empty out its last drop only but also whatever
dripped through it before, so our last hour of existence is not the only time
we die but just the only time we finish dying. Death is not one event; the
death that takes us is our last." — Seneca

• "Years are not given out by quota. There's no way to know the point where
death lies waiting for you, you must wait for death at every point." — Seneca

• "Let death be before your eyes every day, and you will never have a base
thought or an excessive desire." — Marcus Aurelius

• "The torment we feel comes about through our own agency, because we become
alarmed when we believe that death is close at hand. But isn't it close to
everyone, ready in place and every moment?" — Seneca

• "Think about arranging the present as best as you can, with serene mind. All
else is carried away as by a river." — Horace

    
    
                     •••
    

Sources for quotations: Seneca's _' Letters on Ethics'_ (full set of letters,
excellently translated by Graver and Long); the others are from _' What is
Ancient Philosophy?'_ by Pierre Hadot.

------
wombatmobile
"Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things."

\-- Arthur Schopenhauer

~~~
podgaj
So if I never loose my money it is worthless! Ha!

Sorry, no. It is our attachment to things that determine their worth.

~~~
playingchanges
Technically money that is never spent (lost) is kind of worthless tho

~~~
asveikau
When people get philosophical about this, they are generally trying to avoid
materialism and thus not thinking in the terms I am about to use, but I wonder
how investment fits in with that attitude.

From one perspective your money can sit idle in a brokerage account, from
another it is put to use by someone else.

You could take out capital gains and dividends, and spend them, leaving your
starting balance the same. That starting balance could continue making you
money.

In other words there are ways to imagine money never spent, sitting in an
account, that isn't worthless.

------
robviren
Having just turned 31 this hits home. I appreciate the positivity he could
find in the twilight of his days. I can't help but feel I may lack the courage
to face death the same way. His focus on gratitude really does seem to match
what I understand to be the best way to find joy in the often bleak life we
find ourselves in. There is almost always someone or something to appreciate
in our lives.

------
ghoomketu
My great fear is not dying but leaving the people behind who depend on me.

I mean as the only earning member of my family the scariest post part about
dying is what will happen to family.

I don't have a big life insurance and not a lot of savings. So it gives me
chills that my wife and daughter will have to fend for themselves or live a
lesser life should I cease to exist suddenly one day.

~~~
jjeaff
Get some term life insurance. It is usually very inexpensive.

------
mmhsieh
rawls' social utility theory stated that by maximizing the welfare of the
worst-off person, you improve all of society; at the time i learned it it
seemed like a strange idea.

but then i thought: every moment in your life can be valued according to how
much life you have ahead of it. the present moment is the most valuable; and
the very last moment, the least -- you have nothing ahead of it. i thought: if
you live your life such that the last moment, which is the least valuable in
that sense, is as good as possible -- perhaps that would improve the totality
of the rest of your life.

this has all been covered by the buddhist concepts on this thread but i
thought it was interesting that we can come to this same idea somewhat
independently. (maybe rawls was inspired by buddhism? i don't know.)

~~~
specialist
That "live today as though it's your last" was too dark for me. Fatalistic or
something. To get out of my rut, I needed something forward facing,
optimistic.

I eventually settled on "live every day as if it's your first." More of "new
mind" mentality. I needed something that emphasized awe, joy, wonder,
discovery. Vs the addict's group therapy cliche "today is the first day of the
rest of your life."

FWIW, my first brush with death was 34 years ago. Having done the bereavement
cycle a few too many times kinda moots the exercise. Needs to be done. But
it's just a stepping stone.

------
tenbino
Lots of things matter but nothing matters without relationships.

~~~
asgard1024
I think you're right - according to category theory, only relationships of the
objects matter, not the objects themselves.

~~~
The_Colonel
I wonder if you're joking or not.

~~~
johnwheeler
It’s actually somewhat profound and fitting if you read it without cynicism.

~~~
The_Colonel
It's not the idea itself which seems to me absurd, it's the process - let's
take something from abstract mathematical field and apply it on a vaguely
"topologically" similar subjective experience and think that "it's proven by
math".

~~~
exolymph
Topological similarities can be meaningful. Shape and structure are like form
and function.

~~~
The_Colonel
Topological similarities can be meaningful as in they often provide great
source of inspiration.

However, it's just an inspiration and it must be proven in its newly applied
field - proof in context of category theory is not valid in the context of
inter-personal relations.

------
shekharshan
“All that is mine, beloved and pleasing, will become otherwise and will become
separated from me”— Siddhartha Gautama.

As a Buddhist we do “contemplation of death” meditation on a regular basis. It
involves imagining our last few hours on our deathbed. It is a wonderful
exercise to help put things in context. It makes you behave differently
towards people you meet, even strangers.

~~~
podgaj
I have spent hours mediating in graveyards.

Also helpful is the mediation on the 32 parts of the body to help you loosen
your attachment.

[https://www.imsb.org/contemplating-the-32-parts-of-the-
body/](https://www.imsb.org/contemplating-the-32-parts-of-the-body/)

~~~
pegasus
I meditate regularly, but I think this type of exercise is misguided and
betrays the body-denying/denigrating bias that can be often found in religious
traditions world-wide. It encourages an ignorant attitude towards the body:
instead of contemplating the miracles of the muscular system, see it as
amorphous flesh. Amplify the spurious association of the skeleton with the
malnourished body it resembles, instead of marveling at the ingenious way it
serves it's (many) purposes, and so on.

~~~
andreilys
You are not your body nor your mind. That is a core tenant of most Buddhist
philosophy.

~~~
david-gpu
Not everybody is a Buddhist. Convincing somebody who has different beliefs
involves more than restating one's beliefs.

~~~
andreilys
You can test it out for yourself.

You don’t need to identify as a Buddhist to come to the conclusion that you
are not your body.

~~~
EamonnMR
That's like saying you are not your car; while you're driving the distinction
is less important than keeping between the lines and watching for pedestrians.

~~~
podgaj
I am a Daoist like everyone else is a Gravitist. You all believe gravity
because you feel it work and it was explained and named to you. You feel
Daoism and Buddhism work as well but no one has explained to to you.

------
Tade0
I'm the same age and not at all at peace with my mortality - the dominant
feeling being envy of those who get to live after my death.

If I wrote a book with ghosts, zombies or other undead I would give the
antagonists this as their reasons for hating the living.

Anyway that point about vulnerability is spot on. When I hug my SO I often
reflexively blurt something among the lines of "softness is important", but
what I really mean by that is vulnerability is important - this is something I
had to learn from her and it's what helped me improve myself as a person.

~~~
shrimp_emoji
I think: lose enough ego and entitlement, and you can not only find peace with
death but even see it as a truly "happy ending" given the wondrous experiences
of the uncountable people that will come after you (and what a petty, selfish
distinction whose experiences those are is).

But that's not easy. It seems to take years of thinking about death almost
daily and thinking about space and time[0] and history and stuff. And maybe
psychedelics, although I never tried those yet.

0: [https://youtu.be/5TbUxGZtwGI](https://youtu.be/5TbUxGZtwGI)

------
srtjstjsj
Rainn Wilson's Soul Pancake has a long playlist of videos featuring dying
people.

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzvRx_johoA8ITQgxBpeJ...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzvRx_johoA8ITQgxBpeJTaDUhhIB7bfX)

------
unrequited
I recently came across a quote that was en eye opener.

"Its better to be grateful than to be regretful."

~~~
nickthemagicman
It's also better to be RATEful than regretful.

Rate that stuff on Yelp so other people don't have to have regret.

------
deltron3030
Imagine that there's some form of brain time anomaly when you die, where your
last moment stretches and you live on in a dream, with the dreams during your
life being the test runs.

~~~
reducesuffering
There's theories about DMT related to this.

------
voisin
Has anyone else read “Tripping Over the Truth: The Metabolic Theory of
Cancer”?

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23496164](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23496164)

------
testemailfordg2
It's not over, till its over.

------
snori74
"First, the importance of gratitude" \- so true

------
dfilppi
Nobody ever dies from their perspective.

------
ErikAugust
For those who would like to read, but stuck behind paywall:
[https://beta.trimread.com/articles/36666](https://beta.trimread.com/articles/36666)

------
biolurker1
I wish more people would learn about cryonics. It's either 0 or something
above zero probability.

~~~
NateEag
I have not seen a reason to think cryonics will work at all.

Even if we actually do find a way to restore frozen near-death people to life,
you'd better write a heck of a pitch as to why future humans should spend
resources on reviving and healing you.

Never mind all the resources being spent on keeping you properly frozen all
that time.

That's all assuming the company running your freezer doesn't just go belly-up
after ninety years, leaving you to thaw and rot after all that expense was
dumped into keeping your now-corpse uselessly preserved for decades.

Cryonics actually plays the role so many atheists believe religion plays for
the religious - comfort in the face of The End that is inevitably coming to
you.

It is false hope, a tool to help you deceive yourself into thinking you can
defeat death.

~~~
biolurker1
the argument is this: certain death vs a miniscule one in a quadrillion chance
or lower. It will always tilt the other way no matter what the current
scientific status quo is saying because it's possible in theory and it has
happened to living organisms before just not humans. Whether it's good for
environment, your siblings pocket etc is not part of the core argument.

~~~
fipar
I think even if you ignore the environment, and cost, the argument for
cryonics is not very good.

Let's say someone is successfully revived, there's still heart attacks,
cancer, crime (and not just "lowly" criminals, crime also happens within
families for inheritance, for example), accidents (car, or just slipping in
the shower), earthquakes, ... The list is pretty much endless.

Death is unavoidable, IMHO it's best to learn to cope with it, and focus
efforts on reducing what most people would consider the worst deaths (infants,
long and painful diseases, wars and torture, etc).

That said, as long as not many people try this (the environmental cost would
be high), if many people think about this possibility and that helps them cope
with their mortality, and that of their loved ones, good for them.

~~~
Juliate
Yes, if only for the legal status of property/inheritance: if you are to be
revided, who owns your wealth? Do you children inherit? And/when you are
revived, what resources do you have? Is your family/descendants in charge of
you, or you of them?

~~~
Retric
Cryogenic preservation is treated like mummification, you’re just declared
dead. At which point your assets are likely to just get spent.

If you want to be safe, set up a trust that pays to you preferably and if not
then to any descendants you have. That’s unlikely to work if you’re somehow
revived in several hundred years, but it’s better than hopping random people
will hand you money voluntarily.

~~~
srtjstjsj
You can't have a trust with no trustee. Is your trustee really afraid of
getting sued by a corpse with no heirs?

