IIt’s sunny this Saturday morning as I enter Carriageworks in the Sydney suburb of Eveleigh, and the farmers’ market is in full swing outside. But I walk past the stalls and crowds: I’m here to spend some time with a young woman named Emily Lahey. Three minutes, to be exact.
I enter the darkness of one of the venue’s concrete stages, sit on a spotlighted bench and watch a short video narrated by Emily. Then she joins me and we sit side by side while a giant digital clock projected onto the wall in front of us counts down from 3:00 to 0:00. When my time is up, I have to leave.
Over the course of the day, about 30 people sat with Emily. Some used her three minutes to reflect quietly. Others wanted to chat, ask her questions, or tell her why they had come to see her. Normally, a project like this would be called performance art, but Emily is not an artist: she is a terminally ill 32-year-old who doesn’t know how much time she has left. Her performance is part of a project called “Time to Live,” launched by the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) to raise awareness and funds. Each participant effectively “bought” a piece of Emily’s time. Some were complete strangers, others were family and friends; either way, the experience evoked strong emotions. In the foyer afterwards, I meet another participant, Helen, who is visibly moved. It has been a great benefit to both of us: we talk about the grief of losing our mothers to cancer, the fear of living with a genetic predisposition.
When you first meet Emily, you don’t realize she’s sick, let alone that she’s been through multiple rounds of chemotherapy, radiation and immunotherapy. “People don’t believe it when I tell them I have terminal cancer,” she says as we speak over Zoom a few days before her performance.
In 2019, when she was just 27, doctors discovered a tumour the size of a cricket ball in her sinus and skull bone. Just months earlier, as a member of the Australian Defence Force, she had been feeling healthy and fit, running 5-10 kilometres a day. When she developed headaches and symptoms suggestive of a sinus infection, doctors initially dismissed it as such, and it was only when she began losing vision in her left eye that scans revealed the tumour. Chemotherapy was unsuccessful; the cancer had metastasized. Genomic testing revealed it was NUT carcinoma, a rare and aggressive mutation with few treatment options and a typical prognosis of six to nine months.
That Emily is still alive four years later is largely thanks to a cutting-edge treatment not yet available in Australia. She was able to access it from the US under a “compassionate” government program – but only after her condition had deteriorated sufficiently and more common treatments had proved ineffective. “(At the time) it was really frustrating to know that there was a proven treatment option overseas with proven effectiveness. I thought, ‘Why can’t I access it now?'” Emily says.
This aspect of Emily’s experience embodies ACRF’s raison d’être: “to fund world-class research into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of (cancer).” Founded in 1984, the charity has distributed more than $184 million to research organisations across Australia – and in the run-up to its 40th anniversary, it commissioned David Gibson and Nathan Lennon, former creative directors at New York advertising agency Droga5 (and best known in Sydney as co-founders of Hawke’s Brewing in Marrickville), to develop a campaign highlighting the life-changing potential of their work.
Gibson and Lennon came up with the idea for Time to Live. They worked with Carly du Toit, ACRF’s fundraising and marketing manager, who found Emily through an appeal. “She embodies everything the ACRF does. She’s brave and fearless,” says Du Toit. “And she’s a real collaborator on the project. We didn’t just bring her on board and tell her story. She actively contributed to every element of the exhibition and experience.”
For Emily, participating was “a no-brainer.” “Without the research, I wouldn’t be here,” she says. “The treatments I get and the tests I’ve gone through to access those treatments are pretty advanced.” She hopes Time to Live shows “how important it is to continue to fund these research efforts to give people like me more time.”
The video I watch before sitting down with Emily shows what this extra time has meant to her. You see her celebrating big milestones, like her 30th birthday and her wedding to her partner Jason, who she met just three weeks before her cancer diagnosis. You also see smaller moments, the daily joy and laughter of time spent with family and friends. In her narration, she describes her remaining time as “not a ticking clock, but a precious gift that must not be wasted.”
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As a participant, this message hits too deep: you inevitably judge your own life by this yardstick. Am I making the most of it? Helen says that was one of the reasons she took part. She has experience of cancer herself: every woman in her family has had it, and she lost her mother to it five years ago. “I need something to make me live, to do something,” she tells me. “I’m 55. Is it too late?”
As we wait in line, we skip the chitchat and get straight to the big issues. The experience has left us emotional and philosophical, and we have conversations that are rare even among friends. We talk about how reflecting on Emily’s story and preparing to spend time with her has created some kind of emotional and psychological ripple effect. Aside from the funds raised and the time spent in the room, perhaps this is the lasting impact: a rare moment to grapple with the impermanence of life and to connect with others in this struggle.
As we each leave Time to Live, Emily hands us an envelope with a card inside that says, “I gave you the gift of my time. Now it’s time to give that gift to someone else.”
