Before the Night Comes

Imagine yourself going into the lab for a routine blood test one day and being diagnosed with an incurable and terminal cancer the next. Imagine yourself reeling from the shocking news that you are going to become very ill, and then you are going to die. Now imagine that, along with the terminal diagnosis, you have been granted an extended time during which you will not be affected by the rare cancer. Essentially, you will be symptom-free for a long time, perhaps even years. This is exactly what happened to Adolfo Quezada, the author of Before the Night Comes: Living in the Light of a Terminal Diagnosis. This book is a personal account of his response to this unusual diagnosis and prognosis. Quezada, a 75-year-old retired therapist, writes poignantly about the spiritual and psychological effects the diagnosis has had on his life. He considers the prelude to the illness and death a gift that allows him time to seek depth and authenticity in his life, and to grow as a person in the time he has left to live. He calls it "a due date with a grace period." In addition to a journal that Quezada kept in the months following the diagnosis, the book includes chapters on assumptions, gratitude, choices, fulfillment, living, surrender, and dying. The book, which has a spiritual element running through it, offers hope and inspiration to those who have been diagnosed with a chronic or terminal illness, or whose loved ones have. Quezada's words are relevant for, and pertinent to, anyone who is living in the prelude to death.