Message to My Girl

Book excerpt: With only six weeks to live, Dr Jared Noel took on the most ambitious project of his short but significant life - to document what it was like to die, and to record his final reflections on where a young person facing the end of life could find hope, value, and meaning. The result is extraordinary: a deeply personal, and highly inspirational, story of purpose, courage and love to the very end. Jared was dying for almost six years, but his determination to make a difference in the lives of others drew international attention, first through The Boredom Blog, his transparent reflections on the life of a terminal cancer patient, and then through a crowd-funding campaign to buy chemotherapy drugs that would keep Jared alive long enough to see the birth of his daughter, Elise. The campaign raised $170,000 in just a few days . and Jared was able to share the first eight months of his baby girl's life. In the final days of his palliative care at home, Jared was determined to leave Elise a special legacy: an account of his inspirational story and a faithful picture of the dad she would not know. Battling ever-mounting fatigue and sickness, he met with writer David Wyn Williams daily to record this honest, emotional and profoundly insightful reflection on life, death, and everything in between.