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Writer's pictureAbby Gordon

When Breath Becomes Air Part II: Caelica 83

By: Abby Gordon



We’re just over a week away – check your calendars for Monday, September 30th (USA East Coast 7:30AM, USA West Coast 10:30 AM.


It’s a short read… you STILL have enough time to finish even if you haven’t started yet.


In When Breath Becomes Air, Dr. Paul Kalanithi talks about the first patient he lost. It was his Intern year, and he described himself as a paper pusher with mountains of paperwork. “The papers are fragments of narratives filled with risks and triumphs,” he said. After the patient died, he vowed to treat all his paperwork as patients and not vice versa. This mindset shift resonated me, and there are other examples throughout the book. I can’t be the only person in this group frustrated by the paperwork mountain, but taking on the perspective that the paperwork is part of the patient was influential. I hope others found opportunities for mindset shifts or reflection while reading the book and look forward to discussing it with all of you!


When Pain Geeks holds their monthly journal clubs, a Humanities piece accompanies the articles. I didn’t ask Laura and Christine why, but this isn’t part of the routine for the book club. Maybe the fact that some of our books are humanities pieces in and of themselves makes it unnecessary? After reading the book, I was compelled to know more about Paul, Lucy, and Cady. I wanted to know how old she is now (looks like she’s about 10 years old – she was 8 months old when Paul died in 2015). I wanted to know if Lucy had remarried (she has. To a widower whose wife died from breast cancer.) And I wanted to hear him talking about his experience because the book is so elegantly written, but reading it myself or even listening on audiobook doesn’t give me his intonation, his speed of voice, and his facial expressions.


I found many video clips online about the book and about Paul Kalanithi’s experience. This video clip from Stanford Health talks about how time changed after his cancer diagnosis. Lucy Kalanithi gave this TED talk about the meaning of life, saying that Paul’s oncologist knew “living was more than just staying alive.” Or this “A Slight Change of Plans” podcast episode, hosted by my high school classmate, Maya Shankar, is a discussion with Lucy Kalanithi about the book and her relationship with Paul. All of these were great options if you’re also compelled to hear more, but they’re also very similar to the book.


Instead, I decided to share the poem included in the book before the prologue. Before you learn of Paul Kalanithi. Before you experience his life and then his death. The first moment where he and his wife – or their editor – choose to set the scene for what’s to come. The poem is Caelica 83, by Baron Brooke Fulke Greville.


You that seek what life is in death,
Now find it air that once was breath.
New names unknown, old names gone:
Till time end bodies, but souls none.
Reader! then make time, will you be,
But steps to your eternity.

In life, Paul Kalanithi studied literature and was a writer in addition to neurosurgeon. It’s fitting that the book is published with this poem from the 1500’s. Google told me that this is where the title of the book came from. Does the poem elicit emotion from you?


When I read this, I wondered if the poem was inviting me to seize the day. Is this a 1500’s exclamation of carpe diem? Did the book achieve this idea – both for Paul to seize his day, and the reader to optimize theirs? While I struggle with the world being considered in dichotomies – black vs white, normal vs abnormal, life vs death, there is also something incredibly thought-provoking in the dichotomy of breath vs air and the life that lives within a breath. There is also something poetic in the use of breath for someone whose lungs were the instigator of death. A beautiful poem to open up a beautiful book.


See you all on Monday, Sept 30!

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