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Vendaval -> 'You're going to die the way you live' (4/7/2009 12:54:56 PM)
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This story is a good follow up after the discussion on redemption.
'You're going to die the way you live'
By William LambSpecial to CNN
April 7, 2009
"(LifeWire) -- When George Dello of San Diego was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told he had at best five months to live, he didn't immediately begin the chemotherapy treatments his doctor recommended. Instead, he and his wife, Pam, drove up the California coast and spent a week among the redwoods north of San Francisco.
"These trees are 5 feet wide and 150 feet tall," said Dello, 43. "They still have another 150 feet to grow and are going to stick around for another 1,000 years. When I thought about that, I'm just a flea on the bark. It's unbelievable."
The trip offered Dello, who worked in the auto repossession business, and his wife a chance to come to terms with the diagnosis in August 2008, and to scratch the trip to the redwood forests off his life "to do" list while he was still relatively healthy.
He died four months later.
"The idea that dying well is as important as living well gained cultural currency last year when Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, delivered a final lecture a month after learning that his pancreatic cancer had spread and was inoperable. The lecture was viewed millions of times on the Internet and adapted into a best-selling book.
"We cannot change the cards we are dealt," Pausch, who died in July at age 47, told his audience, "just how we play the hand.""
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/04/07/lw.how.good.death/index.html
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