This morning I have the TV news on while getting dressed, and I catch a CNN news item about the recent death of Brenden Foster, an 11-year-old boy with leukemia. It’s a sad story, to be sure, but there’s something very unusual – and powerful – about the way this young boy faces the reality of his own death. Brenden seems preternaturally calm, and incredibly accepting of the fact that his life is going to be far shorter than that of any of his peers.
Searching on YouTube later, I find this clip of an interview with him that aired a week before he died – a portion of which was included in the CNN story I saw:
Brenden exhibits what could be called the “It is what it is” approach to dealing with cancer. There’s a sort of wistfulness about him – not sadness, necessarily, but a detached, philosophical acceptance of what’s about to take place. Maybe there was a time when Brenden raged against the news of his own death, or denied it – but, if he ever was in such a place, he seems to have transcended it. He’s progressed far beyond those stages of the dying process.
I find Brendan’s demeanor calming, and beautiful. Would that we could all accept our own mortality with such equanimity.
