The inaugural book as an opening for our book club. We discussed about death, perspectives of life, and what makes an extraordinary person.
The bit by his wife at the end was especially beautiful:
Although these last few years have been wrenching and difficult -- sometimes almost impossible -- they have also been the most beautiful and profound of my life, requiring the daily act of holding life and death, joy and pain in balance and exploring new depths of gratitude and love.
Relying on his own strength and the support of his family and community, Paul faced each stage of his illness with grace -- not with bravado or a misguided faith that he would "overcome" or "beat" cancer but with an authenticity that allowed him to grieve the loss of the future he had planned and forge a new one. He cried on the day he was diagnosed. He cried while looking at a drawing we kept on the bathroom mirror that said, "I want to spend all the rest of my days here with you." He cried on his last day in the operating room. He let himself be open and vulnerable, let himself be comforted. Even while terminally ill, Paul was fully alive; despite physical collapse, he remained vigorous, open, full of hope not for an unlikely cure but for days that were full of purpose and meaning.
