Read in one sitting. Well, it was lying right next to “This is Going to Hurt” by Adam Kay (I’ve heard of “This is Going to Hurt” many many many times, but this one was a newcomer to my highly limited mind-library of literature. So why not have a read?). And it caught my eye. It also caught my mind.

When Breath Becomes Air touches on a topic which is often feared and avoided - death. It doesn’t have the depressing atmosphere often associated with dying, though. It sounded more like an honest, down-to-earth memoir one writes sipping on afternoon coffee. Except it’s not - mind-blowing and heaps to be respected. Diagnosed with stage IV metastatic lung cancer, Paul Kalanithi - the skilled neurosurgeon - wrote this book in his last few episodes of life. He was pushed by a literal deadline of his life.

But he didn’t make the deadline. The book is incomplete. It just puffs off and away, like how breath becomes air. But in a sense, this incomplete “end” responds to Paul’s perspective of death throughout the years - that it’s not something to be feared, and we just need to learn how to walk into its embrace.

The book begins with a foreword written by Paul Kalanithi’s friend after Paul’s death. There, the friend told the readers about Paul’s end and everything. So no mysteries anymore. instead of the readers anxiously clutching their fists and wishing for Paul’s recovery, now we're forced to dread his destiny. The epilogue flashes back to the moment of lung cancer diagnosis - Paul diagnosed thousands of patients throughout his career, but this was his diagnosis of himself. The next portion retells Paul’s story of how he grew to become a neurosurgeon (human dissections: “where everything teeters between pathos and bathos”) and becoming a better one (from being “at a patient’s pivotal moments” to “with the patient at their pivotal moments”).

Then Paul shifted from doctor to patient. Undignified and meek, he thought, as he began to walk in the shoes of anguish that patients are often in - at “their most vulnerable, their most scared, their most private.”

The last moments of Paul were documented by his wife, Lucy Kalanithi, after Paul's state deteriorated to a place of no return. Hand in hand, the family walks towards Paul's death. But they were prepared.

When Breath Becomes Air is emotional and truthful. The lack of over-dramatic descriptions brings it another layer of heartfelt sincerity. Tragic deaths, gory injuries, and grieving families are all described lightly…. Some are even listed in simple bullet points (from Paul’s medical journal, I would suppose). How much had he been through to gradually desensitize himself from all this?? Life and death seem so unimaginable, so holy and so out-of-reach to people my age. Imagine dealing with births, surgeries, and autopsies in a hospital in a single day! Maybe desensitisation is not necessarily a bad  thing. With emotions, all gets too heavy and too overwhelming until the doctor can’t take it.

Another highlighted truth is the beyond-human qualities we all perhaps assume and demand surgeons to have. We expect them to be professional, meticulous and always mistake-free. We expect them to be capable, sedulous and with an unimaginable dexterity. Those are not demands within human capability. Surgeons have to work up to one hundred hours a week. That is fourteen-and-a-half hours a day. That is, from early morning to an earlier morning. The truth is, doctors are humans too, who desire relaxation and make (very very seldom) mistakes.

Paul said a neurosurgeon is as bad as a job gets without a calling. Now I do see why.

There are countless nuances contained within When Breath Becomes Air, perhaps his unwavering passion towards literature that was often disregarded under the spotlight as a brilliant surgeon, or his dynamics with his wife which enabled them to face death.

But my words aren’t intricate or eloquent... Go and immerse yourself in Paul's life and mind, and I'm sure you'll find it intriguing while learning what you'll never learn anywhere else.