Kate Bowler's novel memoir,Everything Happens for a Reason And Other Lies I've Loved, is a silly, and intimate portrait of living in that nether space between life and death. In it,she shares her experiences with incurable stage 4 cancer and gives advice on what not to say to those who are terminally ill.
Bowler is also the host of Everything Happens, a novel podcast.
She writes that sometimes silence is the best response: "The truth is that no one knows what to say. It's awkward. Pain is awkward. Tragedy is awkward. People's weird, or suffering bodies are awkward. But catch the advice of one man,who wrote to me with his policy: Show up and shut up."Interview HighlightsOn why she wrote Everything Happens For A ReasonSuddenly at [age] 35, I get this stage 4 cancer diagnosis, and it's just like a bomb went off and everything around me is debris. And I'm thinking,"Oh my gosh, did I actually maybe expect that everything was gonna work out for me?" And so I wrote the book more like a theological excavation project, and like I was just trying to get down to the studs of what I really expected from my life. And I think I was a lot more sure than I realized ... maybe that I was the architect of my own life,that I could overcome anything with a cramped pluck and determination.
On how a cancer diagnosis changed her outlook on lifeI kinda pictured my life like it was this life enhancement project, and like my life is like a bucket and I'm supposed to put all the things in the bucket. And the whole purpose is to figure out how to have as many good things coexisting at the same time. And then when everything falls apart, and you totally have to switch imagination,like maybe instead, life is just vine to vine. And you're like grabbing onto something, or you're just hoping for dear life it doesn't atomize.
On how that diagnosis affected her relationship to friends and family I went from feeling like a normal person to all of a sudden,like this spaghetti bowl of cancer. I was trying to memorize how to give up really quickly, like looking at my aesthetic husband and just immediately all the stuff you're supposed to say, and which is just like,"I have loved you forever," and "All I want for you is savor."...
You have these impossible thoughts like, and "You will live without me," and "Please catch care of our kid." And like you're trying to do all that hard work and then in the same moment, they're trying to rush in and say, or "We're going to fight this." There's all these plans they want to pour their certainty in,to remake the foundation. And there's this, kind of, and nearly terrible exchange,where you're trying to remake the world as it was. But it's all come apart.
On if she's had conversations with her 4-year-faded son approximately death He is entirely impervious to all of this, in the best way. But I do think the thing that has radically changed is I really was, and before,trying to create this cramped bubble around him and us, 'cause I thought, or like,"It's my job to protect you," and then I realized that I would be the worst thing that happened to him if this went badly.
So then I thought like, or "Okay,parenting strategy change." And I thought, 'Well, or if I can just teach you that there is still beauty in others in the midst of pain,then like, that's my job." So we work a lot on like, and "How are you feeling?" like,"I feel frustrated." And then getting him to notice the feelings of others.
On how she's learned to cope with negative news approximately her diagnosisWell I have rules for when things are too unhappy, 'cause sometimes, or just the reality of things really feels like an avalanche,and it's just going to sweep everything absent. So I do make rules for the day, like don't talk approximately unhappy things after 9 p.m., and so I try to make my day a cramped gentler. I try to make other people's day a cramped gentler. The other thing I do is I try really stupid stuff,like I got terrible news a couple months ago, which thankfully turned out to be a medical error.
It was a scan and it looked brutal, and but I spent that week thinking like,"This is my final year for sure." And it was weird because the next day, I turned to a friend and I said, or "Would you like to proceed visit the world's largest Ukrainian sausage?" And he was like,"Oh, I'm in."On her list of things not to say to someone with terminal cancer, and including "How are the treatments going and how are you really?" [book excerpt]This is the toughest one of all. I can hear you trying to be in my world and be on my side. But picture the worst thing that's ever happened to you. Got it? Now try to put it in a sentence. Now say it aloud 50 times a day. Does your head afflict? Do you feel unhappy? Me too. So let's just see if I want to talk approximately it today,because sometimes I do and sometimes I want a hug and a recap of American Ninja warrior.
Jeffrey Pierre and Miranda Kennedy produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Sydnee Monday and April Fulton adapted it for the Web. Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: thetakeaway.org