“I expected to feel only empty and heartbroken after Paul died. It never occurred to me that you could love someone the same way after he was gone, that I would continue to feel such love and gratitude alongside the terrible sorrow, the grief so heavy that at times I shiver and moan under the weight of it.” - Lucy Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air.
One morning, I walked out of my office to find Brianna snuggled on the couch with Timber and her book, accompanied by a mess of tears streaming down her face. When she asked me for a tissue I could tell this tearful session had lasted quite a while.
She was immersed in Paul Kalanithi’s bestseller, When Breath Becomes Air. This autobiographical memoir follows Dr. Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon in his mid-thirties, as he’s diagnosed with advanced stage lung cancer. He reflects on how to live, while wrestling with his own looming mortality.
Brianna confessed she had been in tears for at least the last 10% of the book. Even after finishing it, the emotions of it lingered with her for days.
Desperate to connect with someone who shared her experience, she reached out to a couple family members who read the book years ago. They each shared the same sentiment:
“I don’t remember the details, but I remember how it made me feel.”
How perfect a metaphor, extrapolated from a book about death, for how we remember each other?
It’s another old cliche, but it holds true - our loved ones won’t recall our Slack response time, sales achievements, bench press max, or bank balance. Instead, they will remember how you made them feel.
We desire each other’s time, love, and attention…above all. We’ve lost a number of beloved family members over the years. Each time, they leave behind something for us. It could be the cu-cu-clock that hangs on my wall to an inheritance through the sale of their home. No matter the material possession, we would all happily trade it all in for the chance to call them one more time, spend one more day riding Harleys cross country, making a mess in the kitchen, or sharing laughs over whiskey sours.
It’s a default setting of our psychology. As time passes we tend to glamourize the good times and minimize the bad parts. It’s why in every true crime story, the victim’s family explains how much of an angel he or she was. Everyone loved them, they were the life of the party, a great husband, father, etc. They likely were all of those things, but we each have our flaws.
What I’ve come to realize through loss, is that those flaws are just part of the “details.” These imperfections are the details we often forget.
I don’t remember the details, but I remember how he made me feel.
It’s a reminder to release the trivial things that won’t matter in 5 years, let alone 5 months. Let’s give our best time and attention to those we love now, while we still can. That’s what matters in the end anyway.
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