“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give. If I carry only grief, I’ll bend toward cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering. Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible.”

-Francis Ward Weller

You know, you would think as a palliative care doctor, I’m pretty well versed in grief and loss. I actually am not. It is not within my skill set. It is often the social worker and the chaplains that do follow up after the actual death takes place. The extent of my follow up connection with the families of the patients who have died is a simple yet heartfelt condolence card.

When someone dies, whether it is a patient whom I have been exceptionally close to, or someone that I have known personally, I grieve very quietly. The way that I do it is more contemplative than any other way to describe it. I do a life review of them in my mind. I am happy that I got to know them. Then I think how my life would have been emptier had I not known them. Then I feel a bit of joy that I got to know them in the first place.

I am pretty sure it is not the most orthodox way to grieve. But as a palliative care physician, the only way I can do the work I do is

by celebrating life and not mourning death.

Did you catch that? Can you see the subtle difference?

I know that over the weekend a remarkable actor died. A 43 year old intentional black artist who chose powerful roles to be a powerful role model in this world. Like the rest of the world, I just learned that he had been suffering from metastatic colon cancer for the past 4 years.

If you did a life review of him, all the time that he was suffering from cancer, he was creating art and in between his big movies, he was providing surprises for children suffering from cancer at pediatric hospitals. There’s a ton of footage of him doing just that.

I saw him being interviewed on one of the evening shows about a movie he was in, and he said:

“Everybody is the hero in their own story. You SHOULD be the hero in your own story.”

Goosebumps.

Well, are you? What kind of life are you living now? Are you trying to be the hero of your own story? To write your own last chapter even if your time hasn’t come yet?

While I share everyone’s grief that he died at such a ridiculous age, I smile knowing he lived an amazing life. A life on purpose. He lived more in 43 years than most do in 80.

Live an intentional life. Make the right choices when you come to a fork on the road. It is not how long you live, but how you live.

I cannot grieve his loss. I can only smile that he lived. Lived so fully and purposefully and that we all benefited from all of his meaningful choices.

Especially cancer patients he visited to put a smile on their faces, while dealing with his own metastatic disease.

That is grace.

That is worth celebrating and not mourning. We should take all these untimely deaths as mini wake up calls to enjoy the life we have.

Live the life we have, precisely because we have it. How are we going to show up in the life that we are living.

I heard he had lost a ton of weight and had posted a video on his instagram in April to support an organization that was providing PPE for physicians caring for disadvantaged patients. People mocked his weight loss with hateful comments under the video clip. One person wrote,

“One month into the quarantine, the black panther turns into the crack panther.”

Yes, friends. This is the world we live in. The vitriol. The meanness. The senseless act of faceless trolls that can only hurt and never lift another person.

Yet, we get to choose. We get to be good. Think good. Do good. Kids are watching us. Do not lose hope. Know that when you are kind it matters. You never know whose spirit you will be lifting. You never know who is carrying the burden of bad news or a poor prognosis.

So much love to all of you, especially to a good number of you that I know were truly hurt by his loss. I will post a video following this post that I know means the world to me. I hope you enjoy it, too.