Last week my sister said “I’m going to die in 21 days.” If someone tells you they will be dying in three weeks they’re either planning their own suicide or their doctor has told them this is how much time they have left as a result of their terminal illness. My sister is not planning her own suicide and does not have a terminal illness. She has breast cancer with some viable choices that could extend her life for who knows how many years, but definitely more than three weeks. She has chosen to not take them.
“I’m ready for the next adventure,” she tells me. But she doesn’t ask if I’m ready.
Her oncologist, who is board certified with three medical degrees, is an unconventional M.D. Four years ago when she was first diagnosed and she couldn’t decide whether to go the radiation and chemo route, he suggested she fly down to Tulum, Mexico, and meditate with the ancients. You will come home with clarity, he said. And she did. “I would rather have quality of life, not quantity,” she said. No drugs.
He put her on a strict diet of no sugar (cancer, he says, thrives on sugar) no dairy, no wheat. And after many other alternative remedies, within two years two of the tumors disappeared completely and the third one had shrunk considerably. With her lifeforce renewed, she had energy for her ten grandchildren, her many friends, and her painting.
She published a book, went on a book signing tour, did readings and kept her job as a successful nondenominational minister.
Last year when she turned 84, the tumor that hadn’t quite disappeared began growing again. She was experiencing severe pain and her doctor asked her what she wanted to do this time. She said, “I think I want to eat whatever I want and have as much joy with the time I have left.” Family members and friends had lists of ideas and doctors and protocols, arguments about why she should stay with us as long as there was a possibility of her survival.
Her response was, I’m done with this part of my journey. I’ve had an amazing life. My kids are all settled. My grandkids have been launched. I have no outstanding issues, no unresolved story lines, no unfinished business. I feel complete and at peace.
I kept quiet.
Because her argument was hard to argue with.
My sister and I FaceTime almost every day and it has been fun watching her savor her beloved croissant with gobs of the forbidden cream cheese, listen to her describe the delicious red lentil soup she made that morning, read me a poem she had written years ago that she had just found in her files. She calls me late at night animated about a film they just finished watching. You have to get it, she says, it’s on Netflix.
Is this the profile of a person who’s going to die in three weeks?
How are you doing, my husband asks me. How am I doing? It’s the question I keep asking myself. If my sister were lying in bed, weak and weeping I’d be getting on a plane, sobbing in public and jumping into bed with her. But she’s as alive as anyone.
I’m reading a book by Deepak Chopra, a pioneer of integrative medicine. In “Metahuman,” he says we go way beyond our physical selves, that our bodies are an information construct, that we don’t stop at the barrier of our skin. He writes that we have no boundary, that we are constantly emitting heat and a mild electrical charge that is part of universal fields that extend into infinity. So wait. Does this mean if she dies she actually does continue on?
I have believed in reincarnation for forty-five years, since I first began reading and listening to Eastern spiritual teachers.
So, of course if she dies she continues on. But I was okay with reincarnation in theory. Am I okay with it in practice?
Eckhart Tolle, another great teacher, says death is just going from form to formless. That has been at the core of my understanding of death.
Can I compartmentalize and believe one thing but not want my sister to go from form to formless?
I have always written to find out what I am feeling and thinking. And this time is no different. There’s a part of me that can’t stop crying and another part in awe at her lack of fear. She’s always been my mentor, and now once again she’s forcing me to put my money where my heart is.
Yesterday she said she was in a lot of pain but didn’t want to take the morphine the doc gave her. I said, “why in the world not?” And in all seriousness she said, it’s addicting. There was a pause and then we both cracked up laughing.
So now I wonder if you’re thinking, “Wow, those Slonim sisters are a pair.”
Well, actually, yes we are.
One of us still in form and the other … Well, that remains to be seen.
Writing that piece made me realize I was not as cool as I thought I was. I did not want her to leave me and I was sad that I thought I could be surrendered about such a huge thing. It was only by writing it though, was I able to feel what I really felt.
This is proof that when you write what your subconscious is thinking or even your conscious mind, once on the page you can actually own it. It’s not hidden underneath layers of…I think we’re running out of Thai coconut milk.
Based on the book Memoir as Medicine. Copyright © 2022 by Nancy Slonim Aronie. Reprinted with permission from New World Library. www.NewWorldLibrary.com.
