What does it mean to live well when time is running out?

“Come see me in the good light”— a film about living (and loving) well in the face of death

What does it mean to live well when time is running out?

What does it mean to stay when someone you love is dying?

These are the questions I fell asleep asking myself after watching Come See Me in the Good Light, a new documentary on AppleTV+ about Colorado Poet Laureate Andrea Gibson’s experience of being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

If you’re unfamiliar with the life and work of Andrea Gibson, they died of ovarian cancer on July 14, 2025, at the age of 49. In the days that followed, their poetry flooded social media. For some (like me), their death was an introduction to their work. For others, it was a moment of grief mixed with gratitude for their courage, honesty, and brilliant collection of poetry. (If you’re curious, I wrote about Gibson’s death and the cultural moment around it in How to f*cking love your life.)

And even if you’re not into poetry, you will be after watching Come See Me in the Good Light.

As the film’s director Ryan White said: “I can’t tell you how many people have seen this film and said, ‘Oh my god, I love poetry now…And I’m talking about demographics you wouldn’t think would be into a non-binary queer activist’s poetry. Old Republican dudes in Florida now love Andrea’s poetry.”

Gibson didn’t write over people’s heads. They used plain language to capture the deepest truths. That’s part of what makes this film and their poetry so special. It’s about how their cancer diagnosis stripped everything away—the noise, the worry, the distraction—and what remained was what really matters: the ordinary things we tend to rush past, like the warmth of the sun on your face, morning birdsong, and the presence of someone you love.

“We thought we were making a documentary about dying, but we quickly realized it’s actually a documentary about living,” says White.

Why you should watch this film

If you’re exploring the practice of death contemplation, on your own journey of grief or caregiving, or simply trying to live a more intentional and meaningful life, you should absolutely watch this film.

Gibson’s hope was that the film would help others facing their own mortality—aka all of us.

As Gibson said: “Understanding that we’re all mortal and we’re all going to say goodbye to the world and our bodies, wakes you up—and awestruck to the brevity of it all, and you don’t want to waste a second.”

Yes, the film is inherently sad (it’s about dying after all), but it’s also uplifting and at times hilarious. There are thumbs in unexpected places, tortured mailboxes, and poems that feel like prayers (ifykyk). Moreover, it is a deeply moving love story that sheds light on an often overlooked end-of-life experience: the caregiver’s perspective. The film portrays how Gibson’s partner Megan Falley (also a poet) navigates the surreal and heartbreaking experience of watching the person she loves live and die at the same time.

Andrea’s story is a universal human story (cancer doesn’t care about your politics) about happiness being easier to find once we realize we don’t have forever to find it. Without giving away the whole film—because I really hope you watch it—here are a few lessons I took from it.

The paradox of life

“Every month I’m living, I’m dying, I’m living, I’m dying.” — Andrea

In the film, you learn that Gibson’s cancer can be tested through blood and measured by a number. And every month, like clockwork, a new test with a new number is provided to determine whether the treatment is working and whether Meg and Andrea have more time together.

We watch as Gibson (and Falley) go through this suspenseful process, staring at their computer, holding their breath before reading the results—a lottery drawn every few weeks, where the prize is life or death. Tomorrow is not guaranteed.

But tomorrow is never guaranteed for any of us. Suddenly, it seems absurd to wait for “someday” to do the things that bring us joy or spend time with the people we love.

Especially when you hear Gibson say:

“I would live the rest of my life without tastebuds if I could live the rest of my life.”

Andrea said, strikingly, they’ve lived more in their years with cancer than in the decades before. It’s a hard-won truth. In the face of the unknown, of death, Andrea intentionally chose presence and joy over anger and denial.

Your body is a miracle–thank it

The day Gibson got their cancer diagnosis, they tried to break up with their partner Falley, but she said she wasn’t going anywhere. We also learn that Falley was working on a memoir about her body insecurities, and how learning of the diagnosis put the world and her own wounds into perspective, creating a feeling of “wtf am I doing?!”

This prompted Falley to ask Gibson whether they missed being a “hair icon.” Gibson replied with one of her characteristically simple, profound lines:

“I just want to have a body. I don’t care what it looks like.”

Andrea Gibson, the hair icon!

When survival is at stake, everything from your hair, memory, to even pleasure, becomes negotiable. But when Gibson faced the possibility of losing their voice—the ability to speak, to perform, to connect—fear crept in. They had been fine letting go of their hair and tastebuds, but the idea of losing their voice, what felt like their deepest expression of self and purpose, was different. That’s when Gibson asked for the first time in the film: What quality of life is still worth living?

We spend so much of our lives criticizing the bodies we live in, but when time runs out, the body becomes something else: a vessel, a miracle, a last home. Andrea’s (and Meg’s) story asks us to rethink how we see our own physical form: not as an enemy to be fixed, but a companion to be cherished while we still have it.

Worrying is a complete waste of time

Falley showed us how caring for someone you love at the end of their life changes your perspective. It made her realize: “Worrying is a complete waste of time.”

Anyone who’s ever cared for a dying parent, partner, or friend knows this ache: the tug-of-war between presence and self-preservation. Falley describes not knowing whether she is experiencing strength or suppression: “If someone said to me ‘Andrea is gonna die in a month,’ I wouldn’t be spending any of my time writing a book, I would be there and be present.”

When you love someone who is dying, you try to put your own grief on a shelf to make space for theirs. You try to hold it together so they don’t have to. And more often than not, you have to put your own life plans on hold (like writing a memoir on your body insecurities), because time feels short and you spend too much time worrying about not doing enough, saying the right thing, or what the outcome will be.

Because when you’re a caregiver, everything feels urgent, but worrying often replaces the only thing (speaking from experience) that actually matters: presence.

Falley was in the middle of writing a memoir about her body insecurities when Gibson got sick. After the diagnosis, she found herself thinking, What the hell am I doing?

The courage to try

Andrea built a life and a legacy out of simple words and honest poems. No fancy vocabulary or PhD. Just the raw truth of their lived experience, shaped into something sacred.

Their poems were never about showing off. They were about showing up and providing support—for them, and for the people in the audience who needed to hear they weren’t alone.

That’s all art is, really: an offering.

It’s easy to think we need more to be worthy—more talent, more degrees, more healing, more money. But Andrea reminds us that you don’t need the whole toolbox to succeed or even get started. You just need the courage to use what you’ve got—and try.

What you can’t take with you

“I can’t take my gender with me to the other side.” — Gibson

Andrea reflects that before they got cancer, if someone used the wrong pronouns (he/him or she/her instead of they/them), they would get upset and reactive. But after their diagnosis, their relationship to gender changed. The pronouns and reactions that once felt urgent now felt irrelevant. Not because they stopped mattering, but because they were more in touch with the part of themselves that felt eternal: a self that exists beyond name or pronoun.

Gibson realized that some of the things we grip the tightest—our image and identity—may not endure after death. That there is something in you, perhaps your soul, that is eternal, and is beyond any name, shape, or story.

Your invitation

Watch the film!

If you’ve seen it, I’d love to know what lessons you took from it. And if you haven’t seen it, but you’ve walked through terminal illness yourself or walked alongside someone who has, what did you learn about living, loving, or letting go? What might you share that could help another mortal facing the same? You never know who’s waiting to hear it.

— Maura