What Comes Next and How to Like It by Abigail Thomas

Author:Abigail Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

The Training

Twelve of us sit around a big table. We are given a bad diagnosis and twelve squares of paper. On the first three we are to write the names of three people dear to us. On the next three, things we cherish. On the next three, stuff we enjoy. On the last three, things about ourselves we value. We spread the squares in front of us neatly on the table. Then we are given six months to live.

The instructor describes the disease’s progress month by month. As each month passes, and our condition worsens, we must tear up two pieces of paper. The instructor comes around the table and collects the torn pieces in a shopping bag. By the end of the six months, when we are too weak to sit up, too weak to eat, when we have lost so much weight that our clothes hang off our bodies, we each have two pieces of paper left. The instructor comes around the table and from us she takes one of the last two pieces, tears it up, and drops it in her shopping bag. The room is quiet. We are each left with one piece of paper. Then she tells us to tear that up too.

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