Nuala Ó Faoláin

Amazing interview on Marian Finucane's saturday morning show with Nuala Ó Faoláin this morning. She was diagnosed with cancer about 6 weeks ago. She is 67 or so.
Her outlook could be referred to perhaps as "bleak". She has little that she feels excites her and she really doesn't know what it was all about; what life is all about. She mentioned that we need to inquire (I can't remember the word she used exactly). She spoke about the stuff she's accumulated, the curtains in her room in New York, for example but also the knowledge, information, ideas she's accumulated and that it will all be gone.

Her despair, she was clear in pointing out, is her despair and no one else's.

And at the end, Marian asked "And I don't know if you can give people advice from your experience?" to which Nuala responded a breathy "no". And that is marvellous. Often the idea of self-help authors grates on me - why do they think their way of doing things is of interest to others? To me, life is about figuring it out and knowing yourself and what works, what doesn't, what might, what could... but the lessons learnt are yours for you. Humility is most important and to be admired.

In the programme, Nuala did what she set out - she provided the other book-end to match the book-end that is her memoir. She deserves the death she hopes for. Since my granny and grandad's deaths, sometimes I am comforted by the thought that maybe we do have a little control at least over our own death. May death for Nuala not come too fast and may she re-discover nature and books and being light-hearted before she lets the darkness take her. She did mention food, friends and music as things which have given her pleasure recently.