Chasing Daylight

"I was blessed I was told I had three months to live."

KMPG的前主席, CEO, 在事業的最高峰得知自己有腦癌. 

一個100% achiever, even in death, he wanted to succeed. 



不似我看過的, 瀕死的病人的書, 有的寫得很宗教, 有的寫得很灑脫. 他是一個成功管理人, 要把自己的死前死後的事, 計劃得妥當, 不過份依靠宗教, 也不奢望奇跡. 

他立即辭掉工作, 寫信或打電話給曾在他生命中帶給他進步/美好的人, 同事, 親友. 內容不是傷感道別, 是回憶一起度過最開心的情境, 再輕輕說再見.

之後, 與妻女一起寧靜度過最後的日子. 


書中, 他建議末期癌症病人來說, 化療是很不必的, 它只會更摧殘病人的身體及心智, 令剩下來的日子過得更痛苦. 

也沒有必要花很多金錢藥物去令痛苦的病情延長一丁點.

很傷感的書, 當他知道自己只有3個月生命, 當時是春天, 他說, 他原來已度過了人生最後一個秋天. 

他本很想死前去布拉格旅行, 最後, 成了他希望妻子帶女兒去的遺願.

最後, 他多活了大約一個月, 於2005年去世, 終年53. 


這其實是一本有用的面對死亡的工具書. 


   


The business of dying is hard. The wrapping up. The paperwork, the legal work. 

I was learning to accept. I had to accept. I had no recourse but to accept. 

How I embraced death, life’s ultimate adventure, and what I learned from it.

I'd always preached commitment to goals: setting them, pursuing them, completing them. Now that we'd completed our fact-finding with doctors, I resolved to do three things: 

1. Leave my job

2. choose a medical protocal that allowed me to... 

3. make the time remaining the best of my life, and as good as it could possibly be for those most affected by my situation

A to-do-list of my final days: 

Get legal and financial affairs in order

“unwind” relationships

Simplify

Live in the moment 

Creat (but also be open to) great moments, “perfect moments”

Begin transition to next state

Plan funeral 

Now, I was motivated to succeed at death

這一段說化療

In short, I was poisoning myself (chemo treatment). Why? To end result would be the same, if slightly longer in actual hours or weeks. Was it really worth wearing myself out - not to mention wearing out my loved ones and/or those who would be helping to care for me at the end - just to extend a diminishing life by a short period of time? Especially when what remained of that life would certainly be more complicated, less rich, less energetic - less full of life - because I was poisoning myself? 





Here's is a good life and a better death. Well, I wanted the best death possible. I didn't mean it in a competitive way as in, I'm used to winning, so I'm going to win at this, too; as in, I'm going to have a better death than you are. I meant t hat I wanted to achieve in death what I'd always tried to achieve in life: to do it the best way I knew how. 

Most people do not have the right mind or body to be able to die consciously.