HW 30 - Illness & Dying - Culminating Experiential Project

The first thing i noticed when i walked into the Hallmark (Senior Living Center), was how similar it felt to my grandfather's house. It was very high class, with paintings lining the walls with big ornate chairs, picture frames and vases. My grandfather's house isn't ornate, but it reminded me of his house because it felt like a museum, it was cold inside and everything had a feeling that you weren't supposed to touch it, and much like with my grandpa in Florida, the people were all talking and seemed to be having pleasant conversations, but they were detached. If you were to compare conversations between different age groups, you would notice that as people get older, they get less excited while they talk and less seems to amaze them. In the Hallmark the way the people moved around, they seemed to just be going through the motions of people who have been acting out the same play for too long. They knew the routine of life, and they were tired of it, but they didn't know where to go, life is the only routine they had ever known. So really what else was there?

In the film Near Death by Frederich Wiseman (1989), every patient was lying on their deathbed, and the Doctors were doing everything they could to keep them alive for just a bit longer, either because it was their job to keep the patient alive through all measures possible, or because the family wants to keep them alive because they don't want to say to pull the plug. The patients who can still talk can say to the doctors they want to be taken off of life support, but they don't. At what point do these people stop living? Is it when they can no longer talk or eat or go to the bathroom without the help of a machine? In Patricia Polacco's book In Our Mother's House she makes an analogy to death that particularly struck me. She said that we hold on to the grass as we lie on our backs in a field staring up in to the night sky because we might float off the planet if we let go. It sounds scary to let go and become a part of the unknown, that is why people look at death as the end, because they don't know what comes next.

When i called my grandpa to ask him about his daily life, I didn't have the guts to ask him about death. I asked him what he does every day. He says he wakes up and eats breakfast, then he heads over to the pool to be with his friends. He goes shopping some days, and he goes to the movies other days. The only time he is alone is when he is at home. This brought to mind the Hallmark, where everyone was in their own group, but what happens when they go back to their rooms? I imagine that they are by themselves and are pretty lonely because they are no longer with their family or loved ones. Then it struck me that these people are here and are they way they are because they are afraid. They know that death isn't far off and they have lived long lives, but they don't know what to expect next, so they stay hanging on as long as they can so they can come to terms with it. A luxury that not everyone gets to experience. My Grandmother was able to come to peace with herself before she died. I think she did that long before she actually died because she stopped talking, but she was still very alert. She just didn't want to shatter the silence she had created of herself. When she spoke it was always something important. She had stopped wasting words.

Why does all of this matter? What is the significance of being able to come to terms with your death? There is only 1 sure thing in life, and that is that you will die one day, but even something of such momentous standing is still something we can never fully prepare for. We aren't always in control of when or how we die, but would that make it better? Would people feel more comfortable if they knew they were in complete control of their death? I believe the answer is no. Even as we get older we are still afraid to die because of the mystery of it all. People are willing to die if they aren't dying in vain. They want to die in peace, or die for a cause. What i am trying to say is that we do have some control over when we die because we have the will to push ourselves forward, even if it is for just a few more hours or days. We set our goals straight ahead and keep marching to the same beat, and we will reach our destination. Sometimes we may be barely holding on, but we refuse to let go.