1.)He was the care giver of the house
2.)Her husband was creative and talented
3.)Very strong personality even with the illiness*
4.)Never mentioned the word death or dying*
5.)Even if he was sick he still did his artwork
6.)His death wasn't just a straight line
7.)Time is everything
She mentioned that he had a very strong personality when it came to the illness. He was the kind of person who just brush things off and thought that it woold go away or that he didn't need medicine. It reminded me of when my dad appendix erupted. Previous weeks later he kept saying that he had pain and my mom told him to go to the doctor but he said that it wasn't that bad and that he was ok. When he finally did go to the hospital because the pain was overbearing, we found out that if he didn't come any sooner he probably could have died. I agreed with her that most of time men do think nothing can affect them or brush things off but it's not good. I think some men do it because they believe they are masculine or prove something to other people that they can't take pain.
She talked about how through the whole experience they never said the word death or dying which i thought was very vulnerable and it kind of made me tear a little bit because when a very close person of yours is very sick and on the verge of dying you don't want to let them go or even think the worse. We just want to thik happy thoughts. Three years ago when my grandfather passed away it was so out of the blue. He was fine the whole entire day till the night time and he was rushed to the hospital. Day by day his body was shutting down but my mother and i would keep the thought that it wasn't minor and he would get better. It wasn't till the last couple days when it was going to be over that reality was settling in and we were going to lose him. Sometimes just thinking postive thoughts even though you know what's going to happen helps but in my eyes i feel like i would be lying to muyself if i said i did.
After hearing her talk it made me think a lot about death. With your own experiences it doesn't really affect you until you hear the point of view of someone else. The fact that she was there from the beginning to his last breathe was just like "wow". She said she met with a buddhist and i thought it was interesting because typically you don't think of that. She said he would do certain things like "pushing his hands away" and that actually happened. I was kind of surprised. Also that he always put his hand in a bowl of water maybe resembling being in the womb or fish which was insightful and he had a painting actually based on that which was pretty cool.
I enjoyed reading your blog because I felt like you expanded on one perspective Beth developed during the presentation, which was the fact that men are more resistant to medicine. I feel like it has something to do with their independence because men want to feel like they have power and that they can do everything themselves but that's not the case. We all need some kind of treatment and sometimes its the only kind the doctor/pharmacy can provide.
ReplyDeleteI also like how you mentioned that Beth stayed with her husband through this ordeal and it was very inspiring because instead of deserting him because she didn't know what to do, she guided Erik through the process while trying to stay positive that everything was going to work out okay. I also agree that death is ignored by people because we don't even want to consider the possibility of what things will be like when we pass away.
Leah,
ReplyDeleteYour response to our guest speaker's experience with death aligned with what was asked for in this homework because you connected her insights to events from your own life. Like the insight Beth mentioned about how most men don't get medical attention right away, because they deny their pain/illness. You then connected this insight to your life by mentioning the time your father had an erupted appendix and denied his pain until it was too much and he luckily got there before it was too late. I agree that it might have something to do with their masculinity being in play because they must ask others for help and must be looked after when when it's usually the other way around. Next time try to add more depth to these big ideas you mention in your post by just focusing on one and expanding it. Besides that I enjoyed reading this post:)