Living with Terminal Cancer, with Amy Low

Conversing with Mark Labberton

“The mystery has great meaning.”

Joy and sorrow don’t have to be dissonant opposites, author Amy Low suggests. There can be harmony in the space between triumph and tragedy. In her recent memoir, *The Brave In-Between: Notes from the Last Room,* she recounts her battle with Stage IV metastatic colon cancer following the end of her marriage.

Her gracious, generous wisdom is beautifully expressed on her book’s back cover: “Through the swirl of prolonged trauma and unbearable grief, a vantage point emerged—a window that showed her the way to relish life and be kinder to herself and others while living through the inevitable loss and heartbreak that crosses everyone’s paths.”

In this episode, Mark Labberton welcomes Amy for a conversation about the lessons she’s learned from living with cancer, including: how to come to terms with our own deaths; dealing with divorce and a traumatic end of a relationship; how to walk the path of forgiveness and humility; the immense complexity and beauty of humanity; how to explore the meaning of mystery without fear; the role of friendship and community in dealing with cancer; and the hope of imagining heaven.

About Amy Low

Amy Low, author of *The Brave In-Between: Notes from the Last Room,* has been a storyteller all her life. She grew up in and continues to live life through parables and metaphors. She sees her life as an invitation to discovering the new every day and even records some of these discoveries in her Substack, Postcards from the Mountain. As the managing director for fellowships and non-profit journalism at the Emerson Collective, she directs efforts to empower individuals and newsrooms to strengthen our shared conversation in the public square. Most important, Amy is mom to Connor and Lucy. Her proudest achievement is raising a son and daughter who are unafraid, grateful, and curious, whether in class, at home, on stage, or especially in the band.

Get your copy of *The Brave In-Between: Notes from the Last Room.*

Follow Amy’s story through her Substack, Postcards from the Mountain.

Being in the last room of one’s life

The profundity and sacredness of discussing one’s “last room”—”the most human place of all”

Bravery, imagination, and generosity

Amy Low’s cancer diagnosis of Stage IV metastatic colon cancer at 48 years old

Discovering metastases

Living in the last room: an unusual place to inhabit in mid-life

There are different ways to live in the last room.

St. Paul’s “last room” as described in the Letter to the Philippians

Lament and levity

Grief and being with people in their last rooms

Being fully alive in the midst of facing one’s death

“I can say with confidence for me that divorce was far harder than cancer. When I had to grapple with the gravity of my disease and the diagnosis and what I was going to face … I had come through a space of the woods that I can say was far more ominous, far harder, far more heartbreaking.”

Divorce

Forgiveness and receiving care from her ex-husband

How to create a new story in the wake of tragedy and trauma

Forgiveness as “releasing people from the negative consequences of their behavior”

“Giving yourself permission to be truly loved, and to be truly released from shame.”

Fear

Amy’s honest, artful, candid expression of her story

“Metaphors are places that hold ambiguity.”

Finding peace with ambiguity and mystery

Joy and purpose

“The worst thing anyone ever said to me was, you know, this whole thing is like so random. … And I thought, ‘No. No. The minute you call this random, the minute this doesn’t have any meaning.”

“The mystery has great meaning.”

Grappling with the tension of purpose and pain

How specific friends stood by Amy in approaching the experience of her cancer diagnosis

“Don’t just do something. Stand there.”

The challenge of receiving without giving much back—and reframing the meaning of “giving back”

The hope of imagining heaven

Heaven on earth as parachuting hot dogs

“The great hope is that we all wake up and we laugh at the good stuff and be brave at the hard stuff.”

Production Credits

Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.