This is the Best Medicine Ever

And you've never thought of it before

At the eye doctor in downtown Tijuana. She was working on a Saturday afternoon. She listened with kindness, competence, and attention; spent more than an hour with us; and never once looked at a computer. She did not act like I was a number she needed to code into the computer for insurance purposes. At the end of our appointment, which cost $50, this kind soul and healer gave me a hug, a word—several—of reassurance, and an eye patch, which I was in dire need of and which she did not charge me for.

There’s something about having a terminal diagnosis that brings life into focus in a way that, say, not being “terminally ill” does not.

That first sentence was my weird sense of humor. If you’ve been with me for awhile, you’re familiar with it and not cringing right now.

If this is the first Vibrant Life Substack (← article? newsletter? What are we doing here anyway friends?) you’ve ever read, you don’t know what you’ve been missing and you’re not ready to think about casket-shopping or whether you’re going to attend my funeral, you may want to stop reading right now, unsubscribe, close the computer, and runn far, far away from the internet (which, actually is a good idea in any case, even though now this is a run-on sentence).

If you' can’t read any further, that’s okay. I will try hard not to take it personally. I may or may not succeed.

In the I’m-learning-ALL-the-life-lessons spirit, enter another life lesson: What someone else can or cannot handle has to do with them, not you. So if you leave don’t let the door hit you in the a** on the way out, I’ll still love you.

Let’s move on.

You may be 95 and reading this and have never had an ache or a pain in your life. Or you may be 16 and dealing with irritable bowel syndrome that is so acute you are barely able to make it through a school day.

Whoever you are and whatever your vantage point, I think it’s fair to say that anyone who has had an acute or a chronic illness (go metastatic melanoma!), or who has cared for someone with an acute or chronic illness, starts to see life and health in a different way.

Being so sick your body is not absorbing nutrients, you sometimes can’t get out of bed because the idea of sitting up is simply too Herculean, and you aren’t sure where you will find the energy to lift the fork to eat the food someone has set before you (you find that energy, pick up the fork only to watch it clatter to the ground. Oopsie daisy. And don’t tell me G-d doesn’t have a funny bone because I think G-d’s wisdom is vast as is his love, compassion, and sense of humor), is very very humbling.

It teaches you lots of things. I want to believe I can learn ALL the things and recover from this massive imbalance in my body. I may learn some of the things and recover. I may learn none of the things and recover. But—and here’s Hamlet’s rub—I may learn all the things and die. Or some of the things and die. Or none of the things and die.

At least my life (what’s left of it anyway) is very interesting right now.

I decided that curiosity is the opposite of apathy. And that curiosity is life. And apathy is death. I am keenly curious these days, delighted to say “I don’t understand” or “Could you explain that to me again?” or “Could you say what you just said a little more slowly as I’m trying to understand it but I’m not there yet.” That’s the New Jennifer. The Old Jennifer felt quite ashamed—pretty much always, and deep inside her body—when she didn’t understand something, could not follow what was being said, or longed for clarification but was worried about being ridiculed and not brave enough to risk it.

“I don’t know” are three beautiful words.

And if someone shames you for saying them, that shaming is about the person being a poop, not about you. You can choose to feel the shame and close in on yourself (hello Old Jennifer. We loved you as you were—we really did—but this was kind of a big problem in your life, even though you were unaware of it at the time) or you can choose to shrug that s**t off and ask again, look it up for yourself, or make a quiet mental note in your brain to remember and revel in your curiosity and ask someone who does not need you to feel small and stupid because that is how they secretly feel about themselves.

All of this, somehow, is going to bring us to one of the best medicines IN THE WORLD, pretty much for every human ON THE PLANET, even introverts. (Okay, maybe not profoundly introverted people but maybe, honestly, even for them.)

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity,” wrote French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943).

We are mammals.

We have thrived and survived in closely knit groups of not only others of our species (Homo sapiens sapiens, thought to be the sole survivors of the genus Homo though this, like everything else generated by AI, is debatable and interesting to think about with curiosity), but other species like Canis lupus (aka wolves) and, later, horses; to say nothing of the tiny critters like Demodex and follicular mites who live on our faces, or the bacteria, fungi, and even symbiotic worms that live in us and on us.

We need each other.

Which was why COVID-19 lock-ups were so devastating to so many people.

Just show up

One of the kindest and most generous things you can do for someone who is very sick and perhaps even dying is show up and sit with them.

You need not bring them anything (← though organic old-fashioned chicken soup or some homemade organic unsweetened applesauce or a small bottle of frankincense essential oil will likely be accepted with tears of gratitude).

You need not do anything tangible for them (← though yes, my friend A did come over and did clean the bathroom even though that is her least favorite of all tasks and, yes, it was a mitzvah for me).

And you certainly don’t have to give them money (← though, again, the $5 donations that you incredibly beautiful and amazing readers have been sending me via Venmo have been a lifeline for me at a time when it is very difficult for me to do any work and my 15-year-old has been typing my articles for me while I sit with my eyes closed, a rice-sock heating pad on my bloated live, and my sore and unhappy liquid-filled ascending colon under an infrared heat lamp).

You can just show up.

Sit next to the sick person if that person likes closeness (raises hand). Sit in a chair farther away if that person prefers more personal space.

Leave your phone in the car or at home.

Don’t wear a lot of heavy duty perfume as sick people are often more sensitive to smells than well people.

Don’t ask a ton of questions or expect a scintillating conversation.

Be willing to just be. With the sickie. Calm and loving and holding space.

You don’t even have to stay long. Fifteen minutes might be all your sick friend has the energy for anyway. Even if she’s sleeping. Which she may be. Because. Yep. She’s sick.

If you grew up in a loving home, you remember how much this helped: a parent or caregiver who checked on you; put their cool hand on your hot forehead; sang you “You Are My sunshine” or “I am a Child of God” or even “Wake up Little Susie;” gently tried to entice you into eating a spoonful or two of chicken soup, and simply stayed by your side for a spell.

You are good medicine, warts and all.

Show up when someone is sick.

Hold space.

Or don’t.

And if you can’t, the sick person is not going to hold it against you. She is going to understand that showing up just isn’t something you can do right now.

Which is okay too.

About the author
Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning journalist, the author/editor of eight books, a sought-after speaker, and a former Fulbright grantee. She has Stage IV metastatic melanoma and is trying very hard to avoid the long dirt nap. You can help by bringing her free-range organic chicken soup by subscribing to her Substack, which costs $8 a month, Venmo’ing her the price of a cup of coffee (which she will use to buy organic food, not coffee, and also pay for the supplements she needs and the other healing modalities that her particular malady is responding to), or simply—perhaps most importantly—sending her some love over the transom, from your heart to hers, and saying a prayer for her in whatever language and to whatever god or cosmic force for good you pray to. Her Venmo is: @Jennifer-Margulis-2. You can also find a GiveSendGo campaign which was set up by her friends but has not been updated in a timely manner on … you guessed it … GiveSendGo. Happy Saturday everyone and if you made it this far (did you?), thanks for reading

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