To so many people, I am no longer just myself. I am a reminder of a thought that is difficult for the rational brain to accept: that the elements that constitute our bodies might fail at any moment. When I originally got my diagnosis at age 35, all I could think to say was, “But I have a son.” It was the best argument I had. I can’t end. This world can’t end. It had just begun. A tragedy is like a fault line. A life is split into a before and an after, and most of the time, the before was better.
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Kate Bowler
Historian of American Christianity; professor at Duke Divinity School
United States · b. 1980
Arts and letters
About
Canadian-American historian of the American prosperity gospel, diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer at thirty-five in 2015. She wrote about it for the New York Times and in Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved.
5 answers
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