When Dying Becomes a Rebirth

More than ten years ago, doctors told me I had three to five months left to live. I’d already been battling non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) for three years. Most of my left lung had been removed, and after rounds of chemotherapy, the cancer kept coming back. It had spread too far for radiation. There were no options left.

And so, I began to do what people do when the end seems near. I started saying goodbye. I wrote letters, made peace, hugged my children tighter than ever. When I sat down with a thoracic social worker, the first thing I said was, “I need you to help me learn how to die.”

The Plot Twist

But life, in its odd and infuriating way, had other plans.

I never thought I’d be diagnosed with lung cancer at 45, or preparing to die at 48 and I certainly never thought I’d be alive to write about it all these years later.

Just as the clock seemed to be running out, a new door opened. Doctors discovered my cancer carried a rare genetic driver: an ALK (anaplastic lymphoma kinase) mutation. On October 1, 2008, I became the fourth person in the world with NSCLC to join a brand-new clinical trial targeting that mutation.

And then something unbelievable happened: it worked.

The treatment slowed my cancer to a crawl. Against every prediction, my body began to heal. Over the years, I’ve gone back to chemotherapy a few times, joined two more phase I trials, and somehow miraculously kept living. I’ve watched my youngest, who was only seven when I was first diagnosed, grow up. He graduated cum laude from Phillips Exeter and is now in his second year at MIT. My older two are thriving, happy, grounded, chasing dreams of their own.

A Second Life

Four years ago, my marriage ended. Not because of anger or betrayal, but because cancer changed me. It rearranged my priorities, reshaped my sense of time. My illness, still considered terminal, had also become something chronic, something I learned to live alongside. The way I 

lived intensely, fearlessly, sometimes impulsively no longer fit the life I had before.

These days, I live alone, and I can honestly say I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I moved into an old converted mill filled with artists and dreamers. I call it “the art dorm,” and my loft, “the art fort.” I had my first solo art show not long ago. It was raw and emotional and beautiful. I’m writing again, maybe two books at once, working toward what I call my “DIY MFA,” and spending more time advocating for clinical trials and medical research, the very things that saved my life.

A year ago, I adopted a little white Shiba Inu, a rescue that, in a funny way, rescued me right back. We walk for miles every day. And yes, I’ve even tried online dating. To my own surprise, I love it. There’s a freedom in not being afraid of heartbreak anymore. I show up fully, no walls, no games, something I couldn’t have done before cancer stripped away all the pretending.

The Gift of Uncertainty

Living in this space between life and death is strange. You might imagine it feels heavy, but it doesn’t. It feels luminous.

Facing death took away my fear. My anxiety dissolved. I’ve learned to live with uncertainty instead of fighting it. That shift has changed everything. My happiness runs deeper. My gratitude is sharper. Each morning feels like a small miracle, like opening a gift I didn’t expect to receive.

If cancer has taught me anything, it’s this: dying can teach you how to live. I don’t postpone joy anymore. I say yes more often. I notice more the way light bends across the floor, the rhythm of my dog’s breathing, the way the air smells before rain.

No, I wouldn’t choose cancer. But I also wouldn’t give back what it’s taught me. Somewhere along the way, dying became its own kind of rebirth.

And this life my second one feels more real, more vivid, and more alive than I ever imagined living could be.