About “Permission to Live”

After investing the better part of a decade caring for dying parents, then a dying husband, Peggy Fiedler learns three weeks after being widowed that she has life-threatening cancer. Like many caregivers emerging from a long season of investing in everyone but herself, Peggy was depleted. But she chooses differently: She chooses to walk through the experience with dignity, receiving back in in joyful community that care she had distributed into every nook and cranny of her life. Through that experience, she emerges with a triumphant lesson in what it means to give oneself permission to live.

Why I Wrote “Permission to Live”

I’m writing a book titled Permission to Live, and it is about how, as I faced a battle with cancer, I faced strategic medical and spiritual choices about how I was going to navigate it. What I learned about love and hope helped me find my way home and reimagine my life. Through this walk, I had to reconcile our larger cultural dialogue about caregiving with my personal views about living as a compassion advocate. Along the way, I found the permission to unearth a playful, healing and enchanted life.

When I think about the origin of Permission to Live, I think back to the day when I was at the side of my husband, Richard, as he faced his decline. He said, “Peg, I don’t want to die.” I looked him deep in his heart and said in my strongest voice, “Then we’re going to live.”

In that exchange, I became his hope. Throughout his long illness, I was his accompaniment. I believe in the transformational power of accompaniment as defined by El Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero. To accompany someone means to be a voice for the marginalized, be the one who walks the journey alongside. To that, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative Bryan Stevenson adds that power of proximity plays a vital role. As he spoke about at the 2016 Carnegie Foundation Summit, we must get “proximate” to suffered so we understand the nuances of others’ experiences. “If you are willing to get closer to people who are suffering, you will find the power to change the world,” he said.

I would lose him, though, and three weeks after his death, I would learn that I faced life-threatening cancer. One night about 3 a.m., I had a vision of Richard. He hovered above me and clasped my hand in his. He pulled me and lifted me off the ground. When I looked back, I panicked. “I can’t go with you now. It isn’t my time.”

Suddenly a phrase bloomed in my mind. I scribbled it on scrap paper on my nightstand and slipped back into sleep. The next morning when I awoke, I remembered the incident but had forgotten the message. But there on my nightstand were the words: Permission to Live.