HW 19 - Family Perspectives on Illness & Dying

Illness and dying in my lifetime is a somewhat familiar topic. I almost drowned in the ocean when i was only 7 years old. I have always been afraid of death and have tried my best to maintain a healthy lifestyle. As mentioned before my cat died of cancer when i was 11 and my grandma died last year. When both died i was overwhelmingly sad. My cat was cremated (although i never asked why) and my grandma had a traditional jewish funeral. At the funeral i was asked to speak upon my grandma and her life in general. I noticed that this a social practice seen a lot, where at the funeral people close to the deceased are asked to speak their mind.

Illness and dying in my family is definitely a familiar subject. My dad had hands on experiences with illness and death even as a kid. At age 11 my dad was declared dead because of a serious illness, although in fact he obviously was not dead. The people that raised my dad were basicaly in denial about what brought about their death. Most of my dad's friends died at 50 (including his parents) just from not living healthy lifestyles. This included not exercising and smoking ciggarettes. We discussed the idea of prolonging peoples lives when there is no hope of that person ever recovering. We both agree that if people want to do die, that is their choice (this lead us to talk about Dr.Kevorkian and that whole issue, but then we got off topic). We agreed that life and death are all part of the same fabric.

My mom had hands on experience with death as well. She had many family members (more specifically aunts and uncles) who died of cancer as well as acquaitances. Her father died very suddenly and very unexpectadly at a relatively young age of 55 of a massive heart attack. This effected her profoundly and made a lasting impact on her life, the event changed her so much that she couldn't go back. Her mother was raised of a jewish decent, so they often had ways of approaching illness and death. Her parents were very emotional and vocal, there was a lot of physical emotion and a lot of crying. Her family did not engage in the typical social practices of death such as open casket funerals. Although her father died a relatively young age her parents took very good care of themselves and had common sense health practices. Her mother especially had the "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" attitude.

In conclusion, both my parents and i have witnessed illness and dying first hand and it has been very traumatic for all of us. We all agree that illness and death are horrible experiences and we as a family try to avoid it all together by eating healthy and exercising daily. While i know that i don't eat particularly well, i try to balance out what i eat between junk food and healthy food.

HW 18 - Health & Illness & Feasting

Thanksgiving. A holiday that comes once a year where our purpose is to give thanks (pretty self explanatory, i also don't think there should be a holiday for this. I believe we should give thanks every day of our lives). This year for thanksgiving my parents and i went down to Miami, Florida to visit my dying uncle, other uncles, aunts and cousins. As soon as we arrived i got the chance to meet and reconnect with relatives. We arrived at about 3 when the dinner was at about 7 and usually on thanksgiving what i mostly think about is the meal, but i was so caught up talking to relatives and hearing interesting stories i forgot about the big traditional thanksgiving meal.

The background element related to illness and dying during this thanksgiving experience was my dying uncle. At first, seeing my uncle (who at 95, still had some humor left in him) depressed me. His skin was bruised and sitting in a wheelchair, he could barley speak, but after the stories he shared of his childhood with my relatives the mood at the dinner felt a lot more "light" (less depressing). The food also helped with this issue, in other words the typical turkey my aunt cooked for thanksgiving dinner lived up to the hype and i was happy and full to say the least.

By the end of the night i was stuffed. My relatives and i decided to take a walk on the beach for an after-thanksgiving dinner sort of thing, instead of watching football (although we did watch football a little bit later on in the night). When we got back to the house my uncle showed me and my relatives old footage of my mom and cousins. This was probably the first time i had ever done anything besides watch football, or just television in general after a thanksgiving dinner and it was a nicer way to end the night.

HW 17 - First Thoughts on the Illness & Dying Unit

Illness and dying. I have had a couple of experiences with this topic. My first experience with this topic was when i was only 11 and my 3 year old cat got cancer and died shortly after. This was the first time i had ever experienced death and i took it pretty harshly. I cried in my room for 2 days straight but soon got over it because i was told to believe my cat was somewhere in heaven, happy. Whether this true or not i choose to move on and believe what i was told. Looking back at it now, i find it interesting. Usually when a loved one dies, we're told that that person, pet or thing went to a happy place (usually heaven) We don't even think about it because the topic is so strong we choose to believe whatever we want. That is how we are taught (at least that is how i was taught)

Last september my grandma died at the age of 94. No one in my family wanted my grandma to die (i hope not) but everyone saw it coming. My grandma was very old and as my mom nicely likes to put it her time was ''running out''. She was buired in a jewish cemetary and everyone in my family was sad. Based on my families reactions i can guess that when someone else dies in the family in the future, the funeral will be taken very seriously just as this one. Was i sad? of course, but as stated before i sort of saw it coming.

Based on that experience at that funeral, this lead me to believe most funerals happen just like that. Death in our society is practiced in a very gloomy manner. We look down upon anything morbid as slightly offensive. This is opposed to the mexican holiday dia de los muertos, which is a holiday celebrated in mexico to celebrate the dead of loved ones. While after the funeral my family and i did eat at a restaurant that my grandma loved to sort of celebrate her death most of the day was filled with sadness of her passing.

I can't predict when i'll die or what the cause of my death might be but i try to stay as far away from becoming ill and dying (or dying from another cause) People in society today try to predict death all of the time. Whether it's "Fortune Tellers" or karma, people think death comes at a certain time, when in fact death is random. An example of this would be my grandfathers death. My grandpas death happened at work where randomly, he died from a heart attack, as my mom likes to put it "He went to work one day and never came back". My cat that i had at 11 also died very randomly. One day he just got cancer and a few months later he was dead. The cat was fed very well and no one knew why he died so spontaneously. In conclusion, you can't predict death, no matter how hard you try death is something that just happens by human nature.