Tuesday, May 10, 2011

I never imagined reading a Hitchens essay would make me teary. Now I know

In a moving essay, that is rich with intellectual references that are all new to me, Christopher Hitchens writes about how the cancer is robbing him of his ability to speak.  Oh, please do read the entire essay (ht).  Hitchens concludes:

My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends. I can’t eat or drink for pleasure anymore, so when they offer to come it’s only for the blessed chance to talk. Some of these comrades can easily fill a hall with paying customers avid to hear them: they are talkers with whom it’s a privilege just to keep up. Now at least I can do the listening for free. Can they come and see me? Yes, but only in a way. So now every day I go to a waiting room, and watch the awful news from Japan on cable TV (often closed-captioned, just to torture myself) and wait impatiently for a high dose of protons to be fired into my body at two-thirds the speed of light. What do I hope for? If not a cure, then a remission. And what do I want back? In the most beautiful apposition of two of the simplest words in our language: the freedom of speech.
"freedom of speech" ...

In the essay, Hitchens refers to poems and essays, and to Leonard Cohen's “If It Be Your Will.”   I tracked it down on YouTube, and listening to it, I can immediately see why Hitchens notes "it’s best not to listen to this late at night."  Here is one version of it:

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