Lucy Kalanithi

A Big Hug, Plus Four Things | Cup of Jo Last night, my sister texted me...

“First, we are all still here.” cupofjo.com/2025/01/21/t...

Words Whispered to a Child Under Siege a poem by Joseph Fasano No, we are not going to die.
The sounds you hear
knocking the windows and chipping the paint
from the ceiling, that is a game
the world is playing.
Our task is to crouch in the dark as long as we can
and count the beats of our own hearts.
Good. Like that. Lay your hand
on my heart and I’ll lay mine on yours.
Which one of us wins
is the one who loves the game the most
while it lasts.
Yes, it is going to last.
You can use your ear instead of your hand.
Here, on my heart.
Why is it beating faster? For you. That’s all.
I always wanted you to be born
and so did the world.
No, those aren’t a stranger’s bootsteps in the house.
Yes, I’m here. We’re safe.
Remember chess? Remember
hide-and-seek?
The song your mother sang? Let’s sing that one.
She’s still with us, yes. But you have to sing
without making a sound. She’d like that.
No, those aren’t bootsteps.
Sing. Sing louder.
Those aren’t bootsteps.
Let me show you how I cried when you were born.
Those aren’t bootsteps.
Those aren’t sirens.
Those aren’t flames.
Close your eyes. Like chess. Like hide-and-seek.
When the game is done you get another life.

“Let me show you how I cried when you were born.”
@josephfasano.bsky.social

Spent some time Sunday hopping across tree stumps with these 7-year-olds. I got a little scared of shinning myself at one point and hesitated, to which one of them yelled, "USE ALL YOUR BRAVERY!!" which is really the best pep talk I've ever received. Sending it out to you💚

.@StanfordMedMuse announces 7th Annual Kalanithi Writing Award—for essays, poems & stories about illness—deadline 1/8/23, open to all💗 https://stan.md/3rkNEpl

Can't wait to chat with @RebeccaSoffer about the immortality of love 💗💗 and her latest, the interactive "Modern Loss Handbook"! Bay Area, join us 6/20: @bookpassage @Ferry_Building...

Seven years is so long and so short. 💚

“Caring for an individual and protecting a population require different priorities, practices and ways of thinking. While it may sound counterintuitive…. we need to think less like doctors.” 👏🏼
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/opinion/covid-america.html @aaronecarroll

to.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/01/lack-paid-sick-leave-undermines-covid-isolation/621233/ @olgakhazan

“The government could fix the paid-leave issue—it showed in 2020 that it is capable of doing so. Instead, it issues ‘guidelines’ and watches people spread COVID because they can’t afford not...

Just so beautiful. @reallyalexronan via @joannagoddard
https://cupofjo.com/2022/01/on-losing-my-brother/

“It’s great that people are paying so much attention to long Covid, but I think that too much research is starting from the beginning as if this is a new phenomenon. It isn’t.” https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/could-this-scientist-have-the-answer-to-long-covid-5sszbxpz9

.@StanfordMedMuse announces 6th Annual Kalanithi Writing Award—for essays, stories, poems about illness—deadline 2/1/22, open to all 💗 https://stan.md/3pfJHRf

Spent some time Sunday hopping across tree stumps with these 7-year-olds. I got a little scared of shinning myself at one point and hesitated, to which one of them yelled, "USE ALL YOUR BRAVERY!!" which is really the best pep talk I've ever received. Sending it out to you💚

“What if we were driven by some sense of moral obligation as a nation?” @donberwick 🙏🏼

https://x.com/timeforselfcare/status/1441125754964791296?s=20

This shirt! This question! Just arrived in a surprise package from my twin sis @joannagoddard 🌸🌸

In case you need this today —

Now 💚✅

“Long-term romance is such a sweet adventure precisely because it is not destiny.” Love this @arthurbrooks ❤️❤️❤️
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/09/soul-mates-love-destiny/620014/

15 years today. Ditto.❤️

"To have a movement that breathes, you must build a movement with the capacity to grieve." @culturejedi https://inthesetimes.com/article/freedom-grief-healing-death-liberation-movements h/t @courtwrites

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22639674/elder-care-family-costs-nursing-home-health-care

“By locating responsibility for care squarely on the family unit, it also continues to limit or excuse greater society — which is to say, the government — from the responsibility of providing care to the most vulnerable members of society.” @annehelen...

"'Why do you need to be positive?... 'I’ve seen some of the biggest bitches come in, and they’re still alive.'" @CaitlinPacific 💖
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/08/caitlin-flanagan-secret-of-surviving-cancer/619844/

https://the-contract.ghost.io/the-cult-of-personal-responsibility-is-killing-us/

“Maybe these things sound completely unrelated—climate change, mental health care, childcare—but to me they are all layers to the same uniquely American issue: the idea that each of us can and should solve systemic problems on our own” @amywestervelt...

@endwellproject @ShoshUMD

"In my own life... my growth – my transformation – doesn't happen in my comfort zones... It happens in the places, the... edges of my life, you know? And this is a time of edges" –@fostaseski 💖🙏🏼

https://dir.lat/2HBlqj...

"My experience is that when I'm actually residing in a compassionate heart, truly there... people are willing to go toward something that feels absolutely dangerous to them. Not because it's all safe and tidy, but because they're not alone in it, they're companioned in it...

https://endwellproject.org/lucy-kalanithi-md-frank-ostaseski-wisdom-and-wonder-2/

"We have this idea that we should direct people away from their suffering, that that's the whole role of compassion: to remove people's suffering. It's not my experience that that's so..." @fostaseski (13:50)...