HUFFINGTON
09.15.13
COURTESY OF EVGENIA CHERKASOVA
THE BIG QUESTIONS
After graduation, Cherkasova
and Kornilov went their separate
ways, keeping in touch via letters
and weekly phone calls, sharing
the details of every aspect of their
lives — their kids’ first days of
school, their academic research,
their relationship hurdles.
On March 4 — Kornilov’s 48th
birthday — her doctor called to
tell her she had breast cancer.
Even as she hid the diagnosis
from other friends and some family members, Kornilov confided
in Cherkasova, and the two went
over her treatment options. Some,
like chemotherapy, were physically intrusive, but would greatly
increase the chance of remission.
Others, like hormonal drugs, were
easier to handle, but came with a
higher risk of a tumor returning.
Suddenly, the conversations and
questions that guided their friendship over the years took on a new
meaning. They weren’t just idle
speculations; they were real, urgent, full of consequences, perhaps
now even a matter of life and death.
“We started talking about how
you deal with these situations,
especially when it’s a patient with
a potentially terminal disease,”
recalled Cherkasova, now a philosophy professor at Suffolk Uni-
Evgenia Cherkasova, a philosophy professor at Suffolk University,
will teach a course next year titled, “What is the Meaning of Life?”
versity in Boston. “She told me,
‘it’s a question of the quality of
life versus length of life. You have
to decide: If you want to prolong
your life, then what do you do it
for? What am I doing in life at
this point? What’s happiness?”
T
HIS FALL, AS THE LATEST
crop of freshmen arrives
on university campuses across the country,
many students will find themselves debating similar questions,
and not only in early-morning 101
courses. In dining halls and dorm
rooms, as they come together with