Hw - 19 Family Perspective on Illness and Dying

Both of my parents had interesting insights on their perspectives of illness and dying which probably would have not been shared if it wasn't for this blog post, because in our family we did not talk about this kind of topic. What I found interesting coming from my mom was that, her mother never talked about illness and dying to her as she has also done to me as well because it should be a innate emotion to show care and concern about the sick and dying. Her quote was "if you are a rational human being, you should know how to provide care for the sick and dying; only irrational people would not know what to do." During our conversation this quote stuck with me the most because before talking to my mom about illness and dying, I had already known to show care and concern to the sick but I never talked about it with my mom nor dad. My mom also talked about showing unconditional love and getting the sick and dying out of gloominess to help them better deal with their situation. She gave an example that before her father had passed, he was very sick and when we visited him, he was in his room, laying in bed with the lights dimly lit and when he saw us, he brightened up. He felt happier.

We should always show empathy to those of the sick and dying do what ever we could do to make their lives more memorable which is what my dad shared with me. One of my dad's co workers who was diagnosed with cancer, they had set up a dinner for her and during that dinner my dad said that all he wanted to do was to make her feel included and try his best to not have her feel bad about her condition. He also was not taught by his parents about the ill and dying and how to approach it because it was something you should already know what to do if you were a rational human being. One of my questions I had for both my parents was since you think rational human beings should know to provide care and concern, how does our society fair with dealing with the sick and dying? My mom quickly replied with, "well if you believe society is rational then we should be able to express similarly the same thought about the sick and dying. "

Hearing from both of my parents about illness and dying helped me formulate where I stood upon approaching illness and dying because in someways I relate to them because their parents never really talked to them about this topic, but they knew what to do when it came to dealing with it. As for me, I feel like I know how I should present myself in the face of someone who is sick or dying because of the straight forward solutions there are to dealing with this kind of topic. We provide care and concern, we make sure they feel included, we try to make them happier, all things to help that sick and dying person avoid their current situation.