"Rapt" and free

Winifred Gallagher writes, in Rapt, of hauling herself out of despondency in the ugly grip of cancer:

When I woke up in the morning,” Ms. Gallagher said, “I’d ask myself: Do you want to lie here paying attention to the very good chance you’ll die and leave your children motherless, or do you want to get up and wash your face and pay attention to your work and your family and your friends? Hell or heaven — it’s your choice.

Dad made his choice last year, when he received a terminal diagnosis of leukemia not long before Mom died. He chose to accentuate and attend to all that had been good and right about his eight decades on Earth. He was experiencing a great deal of the physical pain that inevitably accompanies that horrible affliction, and no doubt a lot of the normal psychological distress that any honest and reflective person who loves life must face, as the end nears. But he exhibited no fear. From May to September his loved ones basked in the glow of his incredibly positive and grateful attitude. Now we know how to die. If there is such a thing as a "good death" he showed us what it can look like.

That was William James's point: our choices frame our attitudes, motivate our actions, shape our experience, become our lives, and can light the lives of others. I keep telling myself: Pay attention...