Relying on his own strength and the support of his family and community, Paul faced each stage of his illness with gracenot 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.

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi