A book I love, but would recommend with a word of caution

“Every time I see someone very old yet cheerful, I want to stop and salute him.”

A few months ago, one of my life mentors, whose father is 90 years old, shared these feelings with me. Now I feel the same way after reading Atul Gawande’s book — Being Mortal, which specifically deals with aging, and the role of medicine, explained through beautifully woven personal stories.

I’m primarily a non-fiction reader, and Dr. Gawande has been one of my favorite authors. A part of me wants to hug him for writing this book. But there’s another part that is now confused and terrified, with all the stuff I now know, thanks to his book, especially the second half of the book. I hesitate to recommend the book to everyone, because it may bring turmoil. It makes one question the many choices that we take for granted — choices about our health, our spouse’s health, our parents, our grandparents, our vocation, and our choice of city where we plan to grow old if we make it that far.

I recognize that we’re all different in how we deal with life’s challenges. Some of us prefer to read up in advance, and others prefer to face life as it comes. We could die in a million ways, so why think about all of them? Although aging is more likely than other ways, some would like to avoid this topic until it hits them. Hence my hesitation in recommending the book widely.

However, I would feel forever guilty if I don’t recommend the book to those for whom the book could be a life-saver, at least in terms of arming oneself with the right attitude. I strongly recommend the book to those who want to understand and take care of an older person, or take care of someone facing a tough medical problem. I would also recommend the book to someone who wants to know how to make a treatment decision, or how to choose a doctor, when there are too many complicated opinions and possibilities. The outcomes are never in our hands, but the book could help draw a map, and teach us how to think about those choices.

My favorite words from the book — “In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all its moments — which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens.”