On Reading Descartes' Error

I see feelings as having a truly privileged status. . . .[FJeelings have a

say on how the rest of the brain and cognition go about their business.

Their influence is immense.

Neurologist Antonio R. Damasio

The words make me want to send you his book, continue

our fight, prove I was right. I think of a plain brown

envelope, protective bubble-wrap, a friend who'd write

the address and mail the package from some foreign place.

Anonymous.

Death notices: that's all we expect

from each other these days. You started it. I slit open

the envelope: my oncologist, moved west (like you), dead

of a brain tumor, 49. You liked the guy well enough, but

I sensed some satisfaction in the way you penned my name.

You used to say I was tough, I'd outlive all my doctors,

outlive everyone, even you. This summer I sent word that

your 12th-grade teacher had died. She was the first part

of your childhood you ever told me about. She used to

gather favorite students to drink coffee and smoke and talk

about life and literature at Rennebohm's after school; you

had a crush on her. We came to be friends. She showed me

her poetry. I wrote on the Post-It I stuck to the obit,

"T thought you would want to know."

Once I told you I believed

I'd caused my own Hodgkin's Disease. I felt I'd have to die.

Not die, exactly, but get so sick I couldn't take care

of everything anymore. You'd have to do the housework, cook

for the children, drive the carpool to nursery school.

That made you mad. You ranted, spouted statistics, cited

Descartes, bullied with reason: science proves nothing

about connections between the body and the mind. You

mourned

the loss of my clear thinking. You were convinced I'd gone

insane. Maybe the chemo had fried my brain. What died

that year was never marked by formal notice. It's taking ages

to decompose. But we have all moved on: you, me,

neuroscience.

What I know now: you could not make me stay

by the force of your pure reason, anymore than Miss H. was

able

to teach you the meaning of poetry.