How does a son respond when told that his mother is dying? Is there a difference when this is not the first time? What does it mean to the soul when the cure itself kills?
American writer Susan Sontag died in 2004 of a form of cancer brought on by her earlier aggressive treatments for advanced breast cancer. She was told of her fatal condition as she was accompanied by her son, David Rieff. Nine months later she was dead.
Is there any difference between fighting for life and fighting against death? In Sontag's case, it seems that her goal was to survive and to live life to the fullest. She was a believer in a "take no prisoners" approach to her cancer treatments... a serious disease required an equally serious treatment, and a dedication to this treatment. For her, according to Rieff, death was not an option.
"But with the greatest respect [for her oncologists], the brute fact of mortality means that there are limits on how much better we can realistically expect to do" (p. 166).
This is a book of two viewpoints: what Rieff as a son saw of his mother and himself as the MDS progressed, and how Sontag approached life and death during this period.
Both were brave, and reflective.
"During the months I watched my mother die, I was increasingly at a loss as to how I could behave toward her in ways that actually would be helpful. Mostly, I felt at sea" (p. 103).
"She told me at one point that she was tormented by the amount of time she had wasted during her life on what she called her 'Girl Scout-ish' obsession with doing 'worthy' things" (p. 106).
"And in the end, those of us who loved her failed her as the living always fail the dying, for we could not actually do the only thing she really wanted, which was to stave off extinction for just some time longer, let alone give her what I'm afraid is all too accurately called a new lease on life. Only her doctors could do that" (p. 136-137).
Sontag's philosophy toward treatment was simple in its complexity:
Search for every treatment option.
Take every chance.
Survive.
She watched friends die because they did not heed this advice. But as the sand inexorably runs through the hourglass, the options disappear, the menu of treatments is taken away, and the final endpoint appears.
Rieff collects his thoughts from his observations and reflections, and from both his pre-death conversations with his mother and his post-death review of her journals. This is not a biography of Susan Sontag. It is a mourning of a son for his mother.
"Mostly, I felt at sea."
It is a tough decision, financially, emotionally, and practically, to be aggressive in fighting disease. Sontag was always a fighter, and her experiences fighting breast cancer shaped her to the end. For Rieff, his mother was... his mother. There is no expectation of a reunion in the afterlife, or a reincarnation and reinvention. You live your life, and then you die.
Sontag refused to be passive in life, and in her approach to the prospect of death.
And she is missed by her son.