Ivan Ilyich Sucks as Reading in a Cancer Ward

I took a book to read in the hospital while undergoing chemo.

I love Tolstoy, so I grabbed The Death of Ivan Ilyich,
considered one of the greatest novels ever written.

But as I began to read, I immediately regretted the decision.
I imagined the story was about some Russian political dissident
sent off to a gulag in Siberia who dies of frostbite and starvation.

Instead, it’s a dreary and terrifying glimpse
of a man slowly dying from pancreatic cancer
as he stares into the abyss of death and confronts his own mortality.

It is my story. It is my lot.
I am Ivan Ilyich, only a few years older than he was.

The story does not end well for Ivan Ilyich.
It did not end well for Tolstoy either. In 1910, he was found dead
on a cot in a remote railroad station in Russia.
His last muttered words were
“Run away! We must run away. It’s him, Death.”

I hope I fare better, but I’m not so sure. Only time will tell.
“What do I have to fear,” I ask myself.
“Me,” Death murmurs from the darkness.

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About the author: In the fall of 2022, Dr. John Smelcer was diagnosed with stage 2 B-cell, non-specified, non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a metastatic cancer of the lymphatic system. He is currently undergoing hospitalization cycles of chemo and immuno-therapy. John Smelcer is the author of 60 books, including a dozen books of poetry. His most recent collection is Raven. For a quarter century, he was Poetry Editor at Rosebud Magazine, where he currently serves as Senior Editor Emeritus. From 2016-2020, he was the Inaugural Writer-in-Residence for the Charter for Compassion, the world’s largest compassion movement with over five million members in 45 countries.