Overcoming Death

They used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness. Greased they 'd say. Offed, lit up, zapped while zipping. It wasn 't cruelty, just stage presence. They were actors. When someone died, it wasn 't quite dying, because in a curious way, it seemed scripted, and because they had their lines mostly memorized, irony mixed with tragedy, and because they called it by other names, as if to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself. "

On April 28, 2015 we took our yearly Portland, Oregon trip to pick up my sister from college. The day we departed Maui was coincidentally Rosaline’s special day, her birthday. It was hard as I left the island knowing that it was her birthday. Three days later on May 1, 2015 we were reunited with my sister, Danae, and on a road trip between Portland and Washington. The travel of funniest has ended. Jokes, laughs, smiles, they all came to a rapid halt. My grandmother, Rosaline’s daughter, accompanied us and suddenly received a phone call. The Maui Police Department called and said that my great grandma Deponte had passed away a few hours prior. No emotion came from my family and no tears left my eyes once we heard the devastating news; we were just completely shocked! At the time, she had been staying at an old folks home called “Roselani Place” in Kahului. Luckily, one of my family members in Maui was available and rushed down to be with her. Ballards Family Mortuary had been at Roselani, and gently held my petite grandma until my aunty Lesli Otani arrived.

It was a beautiful, sunny day in Puerto Rico where my family and I were taking a vacation that spring. As I lay on my dad’s colorful bed in the small pink villa on the water, I find it hard to enjoy the view that comes from the balcony and the salty smell of the light blue ocean. The villa resides on a rocky cliff where the rippling ocean waves smash onto the rocks below. The waves, which usually relax me, are insignificant. I see colorful houses that run along the water for miles just like ours. In the corner of my eye I see the infinity pool that looks out onto the crystal clear water. Something else is on my mind. Something not even the alluring scenery could take my mind off of-death. One month earlier, I lost my mom to a vicious disease called cancer. Its evilness left my family and I broken and sick at heart. When I look back now to that vacation, I think nothing other than sadness and mourning. Maybe it was too soon to take a vacation, I thought. My dad walks into his room and sits next to me on his bed.

The roaring sound of the clock was not helping either. I felt as if mentally there, wherever I was but, physically I was not. I could here voices, sobbing but I could not open my eyes. “she might not wake up for day or hours” was the last thing I heard before darkness took me away.

Usually, a person (or their loved ones) will go through all or some of the following stages of feelings and emotions. The dying person’s stages can often be more predictable than the stages experienced by a loved one who has just suffered a loss.

Death is a very controversial subject. Many argue that it is a terrible phenomenon in life, while others argue for its necessity. One kind of death, however, most would argue against. The death of a child. Something so dreaded it has become a sort of taboo to Western society. Death is a very curious thing, it may take some, while it leaves others. Sometimes it can be surprising, while other times expected. While death may be one of the most inexplicable and confusing phenomena that our world has to offer, there is one certainty, and that is that death is inevitable. As a child, I always knew this to be fact, though I never really saw the effects of it, until I was

It has often been said that death is the only thing that truly unites the human race. While not a particularly pleasant thing to talk about, it is true. In 2016's Oscar Award nominated short Extremis, the issue of mortality is confronted head-on at an ICU as doctors, families, and patients make end-of-life decisions.

Warily, I walked over to where my father was standing right outside the school, waiting for Cole and I, when I saw he had shades on, I knew for sure that something was wrong, due to the fact he never wore shades. When we were to the pick-up my whole family was in there. Noticing, when I jumped in the pick-up, my mother also had shades on. Anxiously, I sat there attentively for the longest second of my life, then my father stammered to us that grandfather had passed away. Countless emotions were running through me, overwhelmed; I didn’t know what to think, raving; owing to they said he was going to be adequate, grieving; due to I didn’t get to talk t6o my grandfather before he passed

It’s so still here, so quiet, so peaceful. I walked past rows of gravestones as I finally approached the site where my relatives lay. To many, visiting their relatives in a cemetery can be a sad experience; I however, was happy for them, because they still gathered together as they had before. I smiled as I remembered those times, when I was but a child and I could just barely see over the table. I could hear their talking and laughter again. How warm and familiar it all was! I remembered how laughter would erupt after my father told a good joke – he was always telling jokes. I could even smell the feast my mother and aunts would cook for us, and could almost feel them slapping my hand as I tried to sneak a piece of turkey before the meal. I remembered sitting at the smaller table with my cousins and siblings, feeling as if I were too old to sit at the kid's table. I remembered feeling left out, as if the adults kept some kind of grown-up secret from me. That same feeling I felt again, as I stood there seeing them all lying as they used to sit, in those two long rows. Although I had grown to be an adult, they still seemed to keep some secret from me, one that I was not to know of yet, one that I am not ready yet to

I decided to leave home after I turned 20. None of who I was really interested them. I was openly gay, they weren’t able to accept it either, I didn’t have anything else to do there.” Antonio pauses for a few seconds, pondering upon his past, then he proceeds, “The thing is that my parents were forcing me to marry this girl, my brother’s sister-in-law. And there comes a time in everyone’s life when you have to say to yourself, ‘I will begin living my own life; one’s life ought to be self-governed. Your life, your choices, live it the way you want it, not the way anybody wants you to live it.”

The notion of death puts many things in perspective. Or even better, death has too much power to modify any perspective.

Past and future do not bum as brightly as the present—the here-and-now will tell you immediately who you are today. A result of the intense here-and-now perspective is a lack of reflection, which is important for growth. It provides an opportunity to interpret experience and grow from it. Reflection allows students to make choices. When reflection is absent, new modes of action are hard to develop. Repeated car accidents, lower death anxiety scores found in this study, and other consistent life-threatening behaviors, may be related to this lack of reflection (Article 1, pg.15).” This quote, more or less sums up the view of life from an adolescent perspective. It is quite hard to decipher the experience of “death” and what one can learn from their dealings with death that will make it “easier” to deal with. There is also a link between low levels of death anxiety and high risk behavior. The less one thinks of their own death, the more likely they are to engage in risky activity that could end in the one thing they do not think about, death.

father did not die a ‘complete’ death and that haunts him. This pain is shown in a unique way

It is common knowledge that every living thing must die eventually; death is inevitable. Some people die earlier than others, while some live long, prosperous lives. Death, however, does not always refer to the physical body. Many notable authors examine the many different “deaths” that are possible. Death could be used to refer to the death of the soul as evil takes over, or the death of hope as one is unable to cope with a loss of child. George Orwell is one of these authors, as he demonstrates death in various ways. Death is a complex theme in Orwell’s novel, 1984, as it examines the atypical “deaths” that humans can experience. Orwell examines the death of social order when the Party takes over in a totalitarian manner. He

Late night phone calls never end well, and this one was no exception. My mom answered the shrill ring of the landline early one Wednesday morning and was greeted by her sisters solemn voice. Aunt Mary told her that their mother wasn’t able to swallow food anymore; an obvious problem that had all the more meaning to her. Barely a month before, grandma’s sister, my Great Aunt Maureen, after a long period of declining health, quickly passed away after loosing her ability to swallow. It seemed that grandma would follow her sister’s example. Mom hung up the phone, the weight of the world settling around her shoulders, and booked a flight for the small Irish town she grew up in.