What does Vivian's dying teach her about life?

The main character of the play "Wit" is an English literature teacher named Vivian Bearing. Her class is known to be the toughest and most demanding in the university. When one of her students asks her for an extension for a paper because of his grandparent's death, she tells him that all papers should be done on time, regardless of any situation. Vivian spends most of her life studying and researching John Donne's poetry. Back when she was a student in a university, her English professor, E.M. Ashford, asked Vivian to rewrite her paper on John Donne's poem, "Death, Be Not Proud." Vivian tells her that she will go back to the library to do more in-depth research on the poem so she can write a better paper. However, Ashford suggests for her to go out, see her friends, and enjoy life, and not spend her life in the books to fully understand the message in the piece of poetry. She tries to do what her professor told her to do, but in the end, she fails and returns to the library. She lives on the words, and not the true meaning of those words. Her obsession on poetry isolates her from society and life itself, making her careless to the surroundings, people, and emotions.

Her view on "life" slowly changes while she is treated as a research subject at a hospital after she was diagnosed with cancer. One of the doctors, Jason Posner, is Vivian's former student. He treats her as if she's merely a subject, an object for research. He does not care much about how Vivian truly feels but how the disease is functioning and spreading in the body. She feels uncomfortable and shocked to see how the doctors care more about the cancer itself than the patient. However, as time goes by, she starts to notice herself in them. Vivian herself treated her students more like subjects than human beings. She regrets her past and wishes she could have done more in life than just staring at the words on paper. The life she has lived in was what others have said and written in their books. She never experienced one of her own.

As her death gets closer, she starts to crave for human warmth. When her former professor comes to visit her, she cries in front of her like a baby. She shows her true emotion in front of a teacher who gave her a mission she did not understand doing. Ashford feels pity and sorrow for Vivian and lies next to her, putting her arms around her to keep her company. She starts reading a children’s book until Vivian falls asleep.

Through her struggle with illness, she learns that there is more to life than just facts and analysis in books. She was able to learn from her death that she should have dared herself to go out and experience the poem than just reading it. What truly is important in life is human contact, kindness, forgiveness, experiences, and many other priceless matters. However, I don't think Vivian understood all of this when she was dying because she never did live a life outside of the books.