UPDATE: Forrest Kinney died 12/08/2019. He will be missed by friends and fans all over the world.

For decades (and in over 40 books and collections of musical compositions), Forrest Kinney taught classical pianists to break away from the prison of the written notes and improvise our own paths. When he was diagnosed with incurable blood cancer, Kinney shared these words with his friends on Facebook (and gave me permission to post it on my blog)--once again teaching us to improvise, only this time courageously creating life in the face of death. Here, in his own words, is Forrest Kinney's beautiful formula for living, dying, and accepting:





LIVING, DYING, AND ACCEPTING

After fracturing my back in February, I was not healing. So I went to the hospital in April. After being diagnosed with blood cancer, I decided to try chemotherapy. The day after I began, I suffered kidney failure and nearly died. (I will spare you the rather gruesome details!) So, I agreed to do dialysis and some transfusions. For weeks, I felt like a breathing corpse. The pain was, at times, hard to bear. The doctors said I would be on dialysis every other day for a year with no prospect of a cure. So, I made the extremely difficult decision to end all treatment and let nature run its course. After all, in trying to stay alive, I had taken a course that had killed all quality of life and had hastened my death. I finally accepted this.