Exposed, vulnerable, and stripped away of life are glimpses of emotion I have experienced through the exposition of this book. In all honesty, I feel like I am Abraham Varghese, the author of the foreword. He mentions ‘the beauty’ of Paul’s writing, and how it made him feel ‘like they had known each other for years.’ Reading these lines made me feel like Paul and I have nurtured a bond between each other already, the cherry on the top being that we both are striving physicians, in hopes to be attendings. However, it pains me to acknowledge his demise and the neglection of his dreams.
In the grand scheme of things, I have not appreciated life how he has I have not experienced the pain-staking journey of medicine, I have not valued the impact of work on marriage, because at the end of the day, I am sixteen. But I have understood till now is how life can turn in the blink of an eye. Ironic, isn’t it? How one minute a practicing resident, investing his blood sweat and tears into becoming a neurosurgeon has suddenly been summoned to a bed, cursed with the cancer he is meant to be treating? Isn’t it ironic that the man in the white coat, authoritative and powerful, is now traversing his very workplace, in his department, in the same room where he has saved and lost lives, wearing a patient’s gown? Thin, blue, and revealing.
His writing makes me, a sixteen-year-old boy, from the other end of the world, appreciate how life can turn on a dime. How something you truly desire, and work immensely hard for, can all be neglected in the blink of an eye. It teaches me gratitude for what I have, and how to live in the moment, because one never knows the future.
As a medical student, relationships seem like a distant dream. Lucy, his inamorata, has been described as a loving individual who has cared for him through thick and thin, and has promised to ‘never leave [him.]’ Her introduction into the book plays a very important role in understanding love in a life. ‘I love you, but I need to be – alone.’ I can extract the sheer emotion just from his punctuation, he is that good. Tough love, I say. What highlights the epitome of sadness is the cancer. ‘She doesn’t know.’ My heart goes out to Paul. ‘Thirty-six’ and suffering. Can you imagine? Thirty-six. Average life expectancy is seventy-four. It’s not fair, is it? Not only to Lucy, but to their ‘hypothetical children,’ Varghese, and readers like us. Take a moment to appreciate the bigger picture… There are individuals wasting their lives out there, indulging in drugs, alcohol, and self-harm, and here we have a doctor, who is meant to save lives, dead.
Conclusively, till now, I understand the value of life. The impact one has on their loved ones. You may think that everyone already knows this… Everyone knows that drugs are addictive, and one shouldn’t do them, everyone knows that suicide is tragic global issue, everyone knows that one should show control and restraint from alcohol, but does one know what’s at stake? They say your life flashes before your eyes in your last moments. He is a doctor, and with his symptoms, it didn’t take a plethora of research to figure it out. His life has started to flash before his very eyes, and the reader acknowledges that this is the beginning of the end.
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