Home > Work > No Cure for Being Human: And Other Truths I Need to Hear
61 " All of our masterpieces, ridiculous. All of our striving, unnecessary. All of our work, unfinished, unfinishable. We do too much, never enough, and are done before we've even started. It's better this way. "
― Kate Bowler , No Cure for Being Human: And Other Truths I Need to Hear
62 " imagine letting go when we forget that choices are luxuries, allowing us to maintain our illusion of control. But until those choices are plucked from our hands—someone dies, someone leaves, something breaks—we are only playing at surrender. "
63 " This is what happens to all of us. We fall ill. We get old. We can’t have that baby or keep that relationship. We missed our chance to go to this school or take that job. Our parents die before we know them, and our kids forget our love. We lose people before we can learn to live without them. "
64 " So often the experiences that define us are the ones we didn't pick. Cancer. Betrayal. Miscarriage. Job loss. Mental illness. "
65 " Just let me point out the books that actively blame people for causing their own diseases." Which she lets me do. The next time I wheel past the bookstore window, copies of YOUR BEST LIFE NOW have been replaced by copies of Joel Osteen's new book, You Can, You Will. "
66 " Will my Duke insurance cover this?" I asked, trying to suppress my excitement before I became too hopeful. He slapped his forehead. "I thought I had thought of everything! "
67 " All of our masterpieces, ridiculous. All of our striving, unnecessary. All of our work, unfinished, unfinishable. We do too much, never enough, and are done before we’ve even started. "
68 " A month later Dr. Cartwright sends me a note of congratulations. He has been able to make an arrangement with Merck, the pharmaceutical giant, for access to the immunotherapy drug here at Duke, and the news fills me with a bright hope. No more 3:45 a.m. wakeups. No more hours on the phone with airline companies, trying to fix a haywire flight--- or relying on donations to afford the flights in the first place. A painful chapter of my life will finally close. "
69 " You have another young patient on immunotherapy? Here at Duke?" I repeat slowly, as Dr. Cartwright chats amicably about how he managed to secure the same drug for him too. Months ago. Months I have spent traveling to Atlanta, whittling down my family's savings and relying on the charity of others. Months of arguing with insurance companies---because treatment was administered out of state---contesting payments and fielding phone calls with bill collectors over clerical errors. I have been hooked to a bag of chemotherapy fluid that could have been administered by pills? I have been getting on a plane when I could have been walking down the hallway in my own institution? "
70 " We are grass, murmur the scriptures. Our crowns are just flowers. We are here and then gone in a burst of wind. But I want things. I want more stories. I want life itself. But am I unfaithful in clinging so tightly to life? "
71 " But the truth is somewhere inside of me: there is no formula. We live and we are loved and we are gone. "
72 " This will be a hard journey," he says. "Is there anything you can set down? "