Trisha Paul
About the artist:
Trisha Paul is a second-year medical student at the University of Michigan. She recently published a book based on her undergraduate thesis called Chronicling Childhood Cancer: A Collection of Personal Storiees by Children and Teens with Cancer. Trisha blogs about her experiences learning, researching and teaching about illness narratives at illnessnarratives.com.
About the artwork:
“I started volunteering with children with cancer when I was a teenager. My experience in pediatric oncology awakened me to the reality that disease can affect anyone, even kids. But the realization that terminally ill children face the prospect of death every day was jarring. I began to wonder what it must be like for people to face death. I don’t know what prompted me to take this picture. In retrospect, I imagine this is what death looks like, or feels like. On death’s door, the vast promise of something more (perhaps heaven) lies ahead–pure and natural, mysterious in its perfection. But there are things that hold us back, stopping us like a red light. Eventually, something’s got to give.”
Visuals editor:
Justin Sanders
