An Open Letter to My Patient- Paul

“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all.”

Dear Paul,

I hope you sleep well. I still remember vividly the day I said good bye to you during your last day in the hospital. People naturally prefer to avoid the subject of their own death, but I was happy you asked about it.

Looking with my own eyes at how fast the cancer had spread, I knew it was a life battle you would never win.

I was frank with you during your hospital stay. The fact of your impending death was conveyed to you. It was hard for me, but I knew I did the right thing to be honest.

Life is not fair

You were calm initially, but your voice cracked after 1 minute. I waited for you to say something. Your eyes were rimmed in red. You told me how disappointed you were and how unfair life was.

Your son died a few years ago because of cancer, and now the disease has come back to take its next victim from your family.

But Paul, life has never been fair to many. I had a young patient who died during his peak in life, a mother who died after her first baby,and a friend who lost a battle to cancer after passing his postgraduate exam ( MRCP) when he thought he would be a good specialist after years of hard work.

Life is not fair, and if you expect it to be, you will be truly disappointed. I have lived long enough to understand this.

Death is certain

There is no escaping the tragedy of life, which is that we are all dying from the day we are born. As I approach the start of my third decade of practicing medicine, I realise how insignificant human life is in comparison to the vastness of the sea, the earth , and the Universe. Seneca once said, ” He who fears death will never do anything worthy of a living man.”

I knew you were not ready, but who on earth is ready to die? You knew your body had betrayed you. You spent most of the time lying there, tethered to infusion pumps, drifting in and out of consciousness, I was trying hard to relieve your pain and suffering.

Years of training in medicine made me come to a stage of accepting patients’ mortality and understanding the limitations of modern medicine. Sometime I could alleviate your pain but I always tried to comfort you in words, that was the least I could do for you, Paul.

You leave behind your love

We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. Albert Einstein once said, ” Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us; our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.”

I trust that you had a good race in life. You left behind your love in this world. At the end of our days, how I wish I could say,” If I die tomorrow, I’ve had a good damn life. I’ve done everything I could do, and I’ve done everything I ever wanted to!”

Cancer kills people in many ways, but I felt relieved you wife was always by your side. You were surrounded by your loved ones always in the hospital.

I understand your departure leaves a heartache for your family that no one can heal, but your love leaves a memory no one can steal from them.

We were all young once, and time has passed

Yes, we were all young once. Time is fair to all of us. If you were to look back on your life, the most vivid, most outstanding memories are the ones where you reached for the stars. You realised how fast time had slipped away from you unnoticed.

You encouraged me to spend more time with my family members because soon life will be reaching its winter like season, surrounded by a shimmering mass of cornelian leaves, dripping and moist with the rain and early snowfall dust.

Saying goodbye to this world is hard, but Stoics advised us to contemplate the world’s impermanence. Nothing lasts forever young and healthy, so we have to embrace our own death.

Paul, the loss of a patient for me is like that of a limb; time may heal the pain of the wound, but the scar will be forever.

Suffering and pain in life are really nothing more than the difference between the way things are and the way you imagine they should be.

I hope your death was peaceful and not in agony.

Paul, hopefully you are fine and at peace now in heaven. With my heart, I touch your hand, till then, see you again in heaven.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. HK Goh

PS:

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