Thirty Five! That was the age when Dr. Paul Kalanithi, the neurosurgeon-author of the best selling memoir, 'When breath becomes air', was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer; and the age when Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, the philosopher-apologist, left the World to his eternal abode few days ago.
As a doctor who has taken care of thousands of patients suffering from cancer, I have had to hold the hands of a few hundred of them as they took their last few steps in life. As a result, I constantly search for meaning to such suffering. Why is there suffering in this World?
In his deeply moving memoir, Paul lays bare his soul. He describes how he wandered through scientific inquiry only to find that most of life's mysteries cannot be answered in its methods. He eventually returned to the central value of Christianity - sacrifice, redemption and forgiveness.
Nabeel, through his 43 episodes of video logs produced over the course of one year, exposed me to the uncertainties of staring death. Like Paul, Nabeel too would vouch that the terminal illness was something that he just did not understand. With profound honesty, Nabeel unraveled several layers of the mystery surrounding 'hope' for me. Nabeel's life was a perfect expression of hope. He had unwavering hope even in the face of a certain death. Yet, his hope was perfectly grounded in his conviction of the central value of Christianity - that Christ died for us to give us eternal life.
Both Paul and Nabeel burnt through their candles fast. But they were a lighthouse into some of the darkest corners of human soul. Their life reminds me of Jesus Christ, the source of all light and truth. Like them, he too came into the World and lived for 34 years. Like them, he too became a lighthouse for all humanity for time immemorial. In his last moments on Earth, the people who witnessed his death on the cross remarked, "surely, he was the son of God".
As I think of both these young men and their lives, I can only say one remark - "surely, they were the sons of God".
