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This Is Us
There Is No Paycheck for Your Life’s Work
A pandemic reminds us that work-life balance was always out of reach
On January 27, 2014, my dad was told his leukemia had returned and would kill him. After a year of apparently successful treatment, lopsided leukemia cells slipped from his marrow into his nervous system. Once cancer colonizes the places beyond the blood-brain barrier, doctors greet you with hugs instead of handshakes. January 27 was a Monday. On Tuesday, his doctors told him they could treat him again but the treatment would be grueling and it would buy weeks of life instead of years. They understood if he didn’t think the time gained was worth the pain he’d go through to get it. My dad, a man who barely slept because he couldn’t bear to let his eyes close on the world, chose treatment. It would begin that Friday.
Two days before checking into the hospital, he boarded a plane to meet a client who was about to pull their account from his business. My dad was self-employed and he knew that after he died, the book of business he left behind was the only thing standing between my mom and little brother and their descent into destitution. In his last days, that book of business felt as vital to him as the book of scripture he kept at his bedside.
