Illness && Death - Initial Thoughts

 “Dying is an integral part of life, as natural and predictable as being born. But whereas birth is cause for celebration, death has become a dreaded and unspeakable issue to be avoided by every means possible in our modern society. Perhaps it is that. ”
-  Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Swiss psychiatrist

 

 According to the Nation Center for Disease Control, 2,423,712 people in the United States died in 2007. 616,067 deaths were attributed to heart disease, 562,875 lives lost the battle against cancer and infants had a morality rate of 6.75 deaths per 1,000 live births. At a glance, these numbers can seem devastating and depressing. At another glance and taken out of context, these statistics become completely worthless. Death happens, the world goes on. Life happens, the world goes on. So it goes.  In this unit, I find that the amount of questions I have far outweigh what insight I can already bring to the table. To start with, the largest question I have is why do so many people treat and see death as this near taboo and terrible thing that Ms. Kubler-Ross describes?  

Initially, for me, a death is a most depressing thing indeed when I come to realize that whomever the deceased will no longer be physically here for me. However, I was always raised and believe that death isn't something that should be mourn. Instead, the life of the deceased should be celebrated. When my great-grandfather die, I clearly remember the family getting together for a feast, BBQ and when my parents, brother and I got home, fireworks as all. He was almost a hundred. That brings me to the next question - why do people get more devastated over the death of an infant than say, an older child, a teenager, or an adult? For one, I understand the idea of "They never got to live their life." Then are they really missing anything? Is it that different from them having been in their mother's womb? I'm not so sure.

As for illness, I kind of equate that with getting older. Even with numerous things 'wrong' with me, I don't really have much to think or say on this. Jumping topics, Mexican comedian George Lopez has a joke where he talks about promising to take care of his grandmother's bills for the rest of his life after his grandfather leaves. In it, he talks about how "our culture doesn't do that, referring to leaving the elderly in 'old folks homes'. "We keep them in the house." I agree with him. Especially in the cases of grandparents and parents, isn't a little audacious to do otherwise when they put so much time into caring for you while you were growing up?

Some questions 

Some prompts you could use to get yourself started:

1. Your experience with the topics.

2. The way you've been taught to see illness & dying.

3. Social norms around illness & dying in our culture.

4. Your family's approach to these aspects of life.

5. Possibly unusual perspectives you have about being sick and/or dying.

Aim for exploration. List questions. Open your eyes up. You shouldn't be writing an argumentative paper (probably), instead try to get your own thoughts and insights and perceptions flowing. If you find yourself writing vague cliches (happens to all of us) finish the sentence and then write about why you think your thoughts circle around vague cliches on these topics.