I am an old man. Named after my grandfather and my father, in the Jewish tradition. Zev Ben Moshe. Wolf son of Moses. An unofficial committee of Holocaust surviving refugees came up with the “American” name for my birth certificate. A shoe repairman, a barber and a butcher, all with adjoining shops on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, played alliterative games with my paternal grandfather’s Yiddish name “Wolf” until somehow the name “William” was produced. Then it was official. The beginning of becoming who I am, and I did not have the opportunity to participate. As soon as I became aware of my existence, I put an end to the practice of others deciding who I am and who I was to become. Kierkegaard would have been proud. I have made a conscious effort to create my own life and become my authentic self. At least I tried. Not always successfully, but the intention was there.

In fact, I’m not really an old man. But these past 3 years of COVID, and war and the death salience that confronted us constantly and unrelentingly, has, on occasion, made me feel older than my years. Certainly, our work with palliative care patients intensified this death salience and forced us to confront our own mortality in unprecedented and unrelenting fashion. Like many of you, I struggled frequently, in between periods of family joys, or moments of freedom and laughter and enlivening meaning. I must confess that I gave in to one of my more persistent friends and started the practice of “journaling.” From time to time, I would write down my thoughts, ideas, etc. It was not a practice of “gratitude” reframing. Like most humans, my brain goes automatically to the negative, dangerous places to ready myself for actions aimed at survival. That means I worried a lot. Turns out most of the time spent worrying was a waste unless it got me to act. The actions often led to solutions, but sometimes, just time led to resolution of worrying circumstances and events. But, the “journaling” was interesting. I started out with a beautiful leather-bound journal I had bought in a leather shop in Hamburg in 1993 at the World Congress of Psycho-oncology. It was old, but not really. It was in very good shape. My first entry was actually a Preface. It was a message to my wife and son about my life, my love for them, my hopes, and dreams for them and how I hoped they would remember me, despite what they might read as they continued on with the journal. I eventually thought the better of that idea and switched to keeping my journal entries on my phone as private Notes.

Perhaps I will live to regret this. I hope not. But I thought it might be interesting to share two brief entries in the journal that I wrote during the height of the pandemic, when confronting death was inescapable.

William Breitbart M.D.

Editor-in- Chief