Dear Reader, I’m Dying: The Art Of Blogging Through Pain

Credit: myhusbandstumor.com

We scroll through our daily news feeds expecting to find the same sticky-sweet formula. There’s a photo of your friend’s brunch. Your cousin got a new job. Someone on your friend’s list really loves cats. We eat these positive moments up like candy.

What happens when life simply can’t be wrapped up neatly in a bow? Bloggers going through terminal illnesses don’t hide their pain under a collage of cake recipes and DIY craft projects. These bloggers look death straight in the eye and expect their readers to do the same.

It’s tricky to write about a subject as deeply personal as your impending death. You risk revealing too much about yourself, or worse, scaring off your readers. Writing about your own death takes finesse, honesty and a healthy dose of humor.

Nora Purmort blogs about death in ways that will make you laugh out loud. When you read her blog, My Husband’s Tumor, you experience every range of emotion possible in the human body (and even some you never thought were possible). The blog follows Purmort’s husband Aaron as he battles against a brain tumor.

But she wants to be clear about one thing, “It’s not a cancer story, it’s a love story. With some cancer,” she writes.

source: myhusbandstumor.com

Her readers follow the two of them as her husband’s illness unfolds. She writes about the first time they met. She writes about their child crawling for the first time on the floor of the oncology wing. She writes about curling up next to her husband for one final nap before he took his last breath.

If blogging were fine art, Nora Purmort would be Leonardo da Vinci. Well, da Vinci with a fierce sense of humor.

If blogging were fine art, Nora Purmort would be Leonardo da Vinci. Well, da Vinci with a fierce sense of humor. She expresses in writing what most of us could never find the words to say.

Her humor cuts through the heartache of their love story. This is what makes her writing so accessible to her readers. Laughter makes even the most unbearable emotions seem palatable.

Her husband’s sense of humor was as sharp as his wife’s. Most 35-year-olds aren’t remotely considering their future deaths, but Aaron already wrote his own obituary.

He writes about living his life as a superhero in disguise, and says he is survived by his first wife, Gwen Stefani.

After his death in November, a newspaper published his self-penned obituary, which is as vibrant and hilarious as he seemed to be in life. He writes about living his life as a superhero in disguise, and says he is survived by his first wife, Gwen Stefani. At the end, he insists his son avenge his death.

Nora and Aaron prove that blogging isn’t just about filling the internet with fluff and that talking about death doesn’t have to be scary. When bloggers find the courage to talk about something that terrifies most of us, they tear away the stigma surrounding it.

What Nora has proven with My Husband’s Tumor is that we can find beauty and laughter through the tears. And that cancer really sucks.

To read more about planning for death, read our guide here.

Laughter is a powerful tool. Take a look at a few of our blog posts about the humorous side of death and dying.