What makes life worth living in the face of death?

In this powerful Ted talk, Dr. Lucy Kalanithi reflects on what makes life worth living and purpose, sharing the story of her late husband, Paul, a young neurosurgeon who turned to writing after his terminal cancer diagnosis. “Engaging in the full range of experience — living and dying, love and loss — is what we get to do,” Lucy says. “Being human doesn’t happen despite suffering — it happens within it.”

Lucy quotes a poem by W.S. Merwin, just two sentences long, that captures what we hear frequently from those we know: “Your absence has gone through me like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color.”