hw 19 family perspectives on illness and dying

well this is very intersting to me because i never asked my family how they feel about it. I get a really good idea of how they feel though. It is completely different from the way i feel. For my mother its like everytime someone gets really sick and may not make it, she always has a dream about them calling her name or something. A perfect example is with my aunts 3rd son, My mom told me how she was sleeping and then she had a dream hat he called her name and told her to go to the hospital so that he can say bye. So that night she rushed all of us to see him. While there i was the last one to see him out of about 5 or 6 people. his mother was with him in the room, as usual she had a smile on her face, thinking so positive about her son and she couldn't wait until he was back home. When my mother took me to see him, he looked terrible, his bod was so frail and he looked like he was gasping for every bit of air. Inhad never been ecposed to that, but the way that i am, i tried to be positive as well. I pulled a chair next to his bed and we were watching tv together, he was not responding to anything i sed and he just had a blank stare. My mother told me to talk to him because he can hear me and so i did. My mother took his mother to the bathroom really quick while i stayed with him watching tv. as i was talking to him, he looked at me and i stared back and held his hand. Then my mother walked back in and sat down looking around the room while his mother was walking back. About 30 seconds as i was looking at him and talking to him, he took one last breath, with all of his strength and then he stopped. His eyes tilted and his chest no longer had the rapid movements. I stood up and got a little bit closer to him to see if i heard him breathe into the oxygen mask, and i heard nothing. That was when i went to my mother and said, "he stopped breathing, he stopped breathing." she jumped to his bed and tried to wake him. At that very moment his mother came in. The smile turned into tears and yells. "Wally wake up, wake up!" no response once again. All i could do was watch. i did not shed one tear. The nurse came in checked his pulse which no longer existed, and then she looked at his mother and put the white blanket over his face. I left right after that breathing with panic. In the elevator i stood there and tried to contain myself but i couldn't i broke down and cried so hard while i banged on the walls. I got out and my brothers were sitting there joking. They said "why are u crying?!" laughing at me until i told them, Wally died, right in front of me. he looked at me and stopped breathing." their faces changed and tears flowed too. At that very moment i realized that i will never see him again or i will never hear him say, "hey you owe me a soda." pepsi was his favorite. About an hour later my aunt showed up with her son and they had nothing to say, they already knew by the look in my eyes. Until this day i tink about that night and how we all went home that night and continued living.

I feel that in my family the idea of illness and dying are so forbidden. We try to prevent it any way possible, but the way that we try is to just hide it all. My mother hates adressing illness but she has no problem talking about it . She had breast cancer 4 years ago and she has gotten better. she likes to talk about illness because she knows what is is like to be really sick. she likes to joke around about her getting sick and stuff but really it can happen. I feel like in America though it is so common that we joke around about things like getting sick because sometimes it can be amusing because usually when we hear those jokes, we think of how likely it is that te person actualy gets sick. In America we tend to make everything a joke because we are scared to think of negative things as actual possibilities. With my grandmother she knows that she is going to die. She doesnt avoid talking about it and she already has everything planned for my family after she is gone. sh is always telling me that her house will be ours and that we all have money in the bank for us when she passes away. She really has no negative additudes towards getting ill. She is diabetic and she is very careful with what she eats and she understands how serious it is, but it's like she reall doesn't stress it. the motto in my family is that when god says it's our time to go, the we have to go. It seems comforting for everyone to know that when we die, god will take care of us, and i feel that in America peple always feel better when they find some sort of higher power which will care for u when we die. My family are big believers in god and that we will all be in heaven. Also we beileve that the spirit lives on after the body is gone. From several people i have heard about seeing spiits and as much as i scares them, they believe that one day they will be in the same situation.

The way my family solves their illnesses are by using medicines and relying on that to help us. We really don't take an illness seriously unless you are in the hospital for it, then all of a sudden it's like oh shit he really was sick. humans always find ways to solve their problems that i feel that whenever someone ends up in the hospital it is like a taboo. its like we fix everything, but some things just cannot be fixed. My family takes people for granted. We don't care untll someone really ends up sik, thats when we all get together and show love and respecct, but My family does that for such a short time. I feel that out of everyone in my family except my 9 year old baby cousin, i am the only one who think about the ones who have passed in my family. for him to come to me sad saying that he misses wally, makes me feel that at such a young age he has a sense of death and he shows that he remembers the family that he spent so little time knowing. He understands death nand he knows he is human, and that his day will come, but it scares him so much, as it would with any 9 year old. He just shows that he isn't naiive about the world and he sort of thinks like me. Sometimes i feel like his greates influence and i feel that im his sense of security because i always find ways to explain things to him and he always understands.

My family overall speaks about death on a small basis but it does get brought up on occasion. The most recent one was my aunt's miscarriage a month ago. It broke her down but it always gets to the idea that her baby is in a better place. The better place can never be imagined but all we ever say is that there is a better place. My one big question to them is always how do they know? oncve again it goes back to religion and it is a big circle of sickness, dying, and god saving us and bringing us to a better place. Let's hope this better place does exist.

hw 19 health and illness

over thanksgiving i really didnt do much. of course my family andi ate but it gets worse and worse every year. I remember last year for thanksgiving my whole family went to my cousin's house in long island. It was probably the funnest thanksgivin i have had in a while except for the part where him and his wife fought because my cousing was drunk. Besides that, it was a great day. This year we decided to just go to my aunts house. or formal way of arriving. Since my aunt lives in my building, i had no reason to dress up or to look nice. i knew everyone who was going to be there and there weren't even that many people there. Its so weird how my family is al close together. we all basically live in the queens area and we all see eachother maybe like 4 times a week so it really wasnt anything new to me. When i arrived, people were eating and enjoying themselves and i had about one little plate of food. I had no turkey because i never liked it. Other than that the little party was cool. i felt lazy and just nonchalant about it all.

One thing i hate about my family and one thing i really wish could change is the way that we always use holidays as excuses to drink. The thing that sucks is that when my family starts to drink, they are most likely not ending. This thanksgiving was not as bad as the last one. Only a few people got drunk, but i dont understand why drinking on a food holiday is necessary

One thing i also noticed is that my family never invites my older aunt to anything special even though she lives 5 blocks away. she has had such a hard life. She lost all 4 of her sons to terrible things but she is such a strong woman. Her last sone passed away about 2 years ago and i feel that i am the only one who ever thinks about him and how cool he was to me. He suffered most of his life ever since an accident that happened when he was younger. it is just sad how we forgot all about her and i know she wishes she was there with us and all of her sons were too.

I typically hate hoildays. I find no joy in them and really i hate how we celebrate as a family. Lets's see how christmas goes.