My Experience With Dying Grandmother

My grandmother’s passing left a huge impact on me throughout my adolescence. I often inquired my parents, who were involved at the time, the disease which caused her life to expire. Many times I received an ambiguous answer -- organ leakage. Because my parents’ native language is not English, medical terminology is a foreign language to them. As a result, the cause of my grandmother’s death remains a mystery to me and later generations.

It was near the end of winter 2005, when my grand-aunt suddenly fell ill. In a short period of time her illness worsened and the doctors informed my family, my grand-aunt only had a couple of months to live. The news was devastating to my family as we watched a vivacious, independent, and outspoken woman, who enjoyed shopping, reading mystery novels and spending time with family become very weak and confined to her bed. Instead of placing my grand-aunt in a hospice facility, my family and I, with the assistance of a hospice nurse cared for my grand-aunt in her home until her passing.

Religion has always been around for many years and will continue to live on. Since 2014, there are an estimated 4,200 different religions, all over the world each believing in different things Having their own set of rules and tradition that must be followed. Storytelling became a way to give people advice or telling people what would happen if they disobey their religious rules or tradition. In the story of a grandmother, it critiques religion for the way it can lead to snap judgments and a loss of freedom.

The first memory I have of death would be that of my dog, Gucci. At the time, I was six years old. I remember waking up that morning and finding my mother in the backyard holding my dog to her chest, crying, and advising me to say my last goodbyes. I recall my father taking him to his car, informing me that he was going to take him to a better place. I did not really understand what was happening at that time in view of the fact that I thought he was a healthy dog. My mother told me that he was in a lot of pain and that the doctors would put him out of his misery. She explained that he was gone and was not

Who in your life has caused you to become a better person? For some people it's a parent who has shaped you since the day that you were born. For others it's the stranger who always says hi to you when you see them on the street. Maybe it’s the couple down the block who struggles to make ends meet, but always has a positive attitude. It may even be the person who has hurt you the most. These people make us a better person even when we least expect it. I never realized the effect my grandmother had on my life until she stopped recognizing me.

Well before I was born my grandma died. I think she was in her early fifties at the time. It happened while my dad was in college. My grandma had been diagnosed with breast cancer years earlier, and her condition had worsened. When my dad heard, he rushed from University of Illinois to St. Louis. He told me it was the one time he has driven over 100 mph. He got there on time, but days later she died. My grandma was a potter. My dad said she had a spinner in the basement, and loved to make bowls. There are several around my house. One bowl is in my room. It is blue and white with fish on the bowl. My dad says she got the design while they were traveling in Scandinavia. Now, the bowl is on my desk. I look at the bowl all the time. If I could

In Development Through Life, research on the perspectives of a good death are highly subjective and relate to a personally pleasant end. In the book, the author paints the portrait of a great-grandmother's approach to death by writing, "In this case, Great-Grandma reassures her children that she is ready-that she has experienced a full life and sees death as the next dance." (pg.612) Personally, a good death would be to enrich someone else's life by donating one or all of my vital organs. If It was my time to go whether young or old and one of my friends, family or even a stranger on the transplant waiting list needed a new organ, I would donate my heart or anything else that was necessary for their survival. I

I enjoyed reading your interview with your Grandmother, she sounds so much like my Grandmother. How she grew up also sounds a lot like how I grew up, just different times. We didn’t have a lot of money but we were happy. My Mother worked her whole life and still works today, she had lots of trouble raising four children until she met my Dad who adopted us. I remember we were getting canned food delivered to our trailer at one point before she met my Dad. It all changed when my Dad found my Mom and married her and took on all four of us. For some reason, I couldn’t help but to remember making mud pies and building forts in our yard. That was one thing we did have was a huge back yard with a fence, so we would pretend the yard was our ocean full of sharks. We would climb around the fence and if we fell, we got eaten by the sharks. For some reason this interview made me think of those great memories.

I woke up, not knowing that I would be going to bed that night without my great grandma. As it may seem obvious, she was suffering. It was difficult for her to lie in bed, waiting for her very own last breath to pass through her lungs. I specifically remember my

My mother’s panicked voice was cut off by a series of incoherent mumbles. My sister’s head snapped back, and after a heartbeat of stunned silence, she rushed up the stairs.

As I got closer to my family’s area of the cemetery I had finished feeding the little kitten the last of the cat food I saved for him which I broke up into little pieces that he could handle. Then, I watched as his eyes began to close as he drifted off to sleep in my arms from a food coma.

It was a Monday night; I remember it like it was yesterday. I had just completed my review of Office Administration in preparation for my final exams. As part of my leisure time, I decided to watch my favorite reality television show, “I love New York,” when the telephone rang. I immediately felt my stomach dropped. The feeling was similar to watching a horror movie reaching its climax. The intensity was swirling in my stomach as if it were the home for the butterflies. My hands began to sweat and I got very nervous. I could not figure out for the life of me why these feelings came around. I lay there on the couch, confused and still, while the rings continued. My dearest mother decided to answer this eerie phone call. As she

Many turning points have occurred in my life, but I would say one really sticks out for me. This was when my granddad died in 2010. I talked about this event and how it affected my life in a thought piece earlier this year, but I thought this would be a good opportunity to elaborate on such a life changing event.

As a young child, I’d never really been exposed to death, only that of some old animals that died of natural causes, and it was because of this that I prepared for it when it came along. I taught myself to be ok with extracting certain people from my life. The first death I expected to encounter was that of my grandfather. He’d been electrocuted, broken his spine, regenerated an artery in his neck, and fallen into a pool for 20 minutes after hitting his head and passing out. Needless to say I’ve been fairly prepared for my dear grandfather to move on, however he’s still alive today with only aches and pains like normal seniors. No, my first experience with death was that of my neighbor, she died at age 19 from a drug overdose. She was my inspiration as a child; I looked up to

The relationship between my grandmother and I was great in the beginning, but one day something happened that made it take a turn for the worse. Not too long ago, my grandma came to live with us. At the time, my mother was pregnant with my little brother, so it would be two new additions to our family. When she came, we had a great bond and got to know each other. But then an argument we had changed everything and our bond wasn’t the same after that day.