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Why Study Death & Dying?:
I am often asked why students would sign up for a course on death and dying, regardless of whether that course is on our campus at CSULB or in South Africa. Implicit in the question is the assumption that young adults know nothing of death and do not want to know. Here are a few of the many journal entries that suggest otherwise. Because of the personal nature of these pieces, names have been deleted. PR
The Personal
…We also went over the process of grief and mourning today…This lecture was by far one of the hardest ones for me. Everything that Dr. Roberts was saying hit home, real hard. I have experienced all of those emotions within the past year and a half, though guilt was the most familiar for me.
Today I learned that there are people going through the same things as I am in relation to the grieving process… Taking this class has been really helpful in explaining why I feel the way I do sometimes. The guilt, regret and sadness are all very common and a part of the grieving process. I am happy to see that that one day things will get better and that this class has helped me grow.
Each day has taught me something important about South Africa and even more imperative, myself. Thursday’s journal was extremely emotional to write yet very therapeutic at the same time. I feel lucky to have the social support to express my grief and the educational opportunity to learn more about it. The more I understand this process the more tolerable my situation is.
Today we focused on bereavement and grief… There are emotional, physical, cognitive, behavioral, and social reactions to grief… Overall, how a person deals with grief is unique and depends on the relationship they had with the deceased. When we discussed how the outsiders speak to those who lost loved ones, most of the stories demonstrate that people do not know how to deal with a person going through grief. It was alarming that some would say “you can find someone else” or “I know what you are going through” which is totally ridiculous because everyone goes through grief in different ways. The day my grandmother died, my relatives came over and it was weird because it felt that no one was really there emotionally. It seemed that they were intent on leaving quickly to avoid the unpleasant situation and when they were there they just kept on talking about how ill and weak she was at the time. Only in the evening did we actually talk about her good qualities, I was disappointed because others did not even say sorry for the loss, they just stayed away and quiet.
Our class discussion about cultural practices that revolve around death opened my eyes to a new perspective of our own culture. When death occurs in the American culture it is an uncomfortable environment to say the least. When friends go through the death of a loved one, few of us know how to approach or console them. Even when I was dealing with the death of my grandmother I did not know how to act and felt awkward being outwardly emotional. In our society showing negative emotions like sadness is usually met with disapproval. I refused to cry at her funeral in order to remain ‘strong’. Why is strength measured by a lack of emotion instead of acceptance? Grieving in public is clearly looked down upon. Death in and of itself is a taboo topic in the United States.
It was really difficult for me to discuss this in class, because I have had firsthand experience with hospice care. Six years ago my grandma was diagnosed with ALS. Her doctors caught the disease late and soon after she was diagnosed, it progressed very rapidly. A few months after the diagnosis, my grandma, mom and aunts decided that they wanted to put her into hospice care. They set up the hospice care at my grandma’s house where she lived with my grandpa. My aunt moved back into their house during this time. My mom and my other aunt live very close to their house, so it was convenient for them to go over anytime they wanted. I was fourteen at the time, and it was the most difficult thing for me to watch my grandma deteriorate into this tiny lifeless body in such a short amount of time. The hospice workers taught my family how to give her medicine, change bags, and numerous other things in order to give my grandma the best care possible. The staff also had family counseling sessions with us so as to make sure that we, especially my brother and I, understood what was happening. I know she was happy and comfortable with being at home during her last few months of life. It made it easier on my family and allowed my younger brother and I to visit more often than we probably would have been able to had she been receiving care at a hospital. I really support hospice care and know that it personally made my family’s extremely difficult time easier and much more personal. She was able to die peacefully at home and in my grandpa’s arms, with her family surrounding her, just like she wanted.
I enjoyed reading about perspectives of art on grieving, like the Vietnam Memorial and the AIDS quilt. That was remarkable. I especially identified with that. I’ve found art to be very therapeutic in any kind of grieving process. In experiencing death, or anything upsetting really, I’ve found art to be calming. It just gives some peace of mind to quiet your thoughts and sit down and create something, anything. When my cousin passed away, I made beaded rosaries for everyone in his family. They more than appreciated it, and I did too, because it helped me to sort my thoughts and feelings in a really difficult and confusing time. It provided for me a means to have an atmosphere where I can just sit and let my feelings be – good bad, just let them be. In terms of that artistic approach, I found that same kind of feel in the District 6 Museum. I thought everything in there was so beautiful – especially the map of District 6 on the floor and the hanging canvases where people wrote their own little memorials to their homes and each other.
Sister Williams spoke to us about how the hospice deals with the dying… She spoke about how those who lost a loved one long for them and it is represented as a hole in the heart, but instead of filling it, a bridge is built to overpass the hole and make new connections. When she said this I immediately thought about my grandmother and my dog. I know that there is a hole in my heart, because they both are gone. But after a couple of years I have seen that I did create that bridge that helped me talk about how I dealt with the loss to others.
I also thought the Assumptive World article was fascinating. It’s beneficial to read these articles on bereavement and the cognitive stages people go through because I see myself and my family in these stages, and I’ve gained a better understanding of how I deal with death. For one thing, I have gone through stages of being angry and thinking the worst of the world and life. I have questioned God and my religion and the point of everything around me. I have also had varying degrees of different assumptions of the world. Prior to losing anyone, I know I felt safe and secure and confident in the goodness of the world, simply because of my upbringing and the care that was taken in raising me. As I have experienced death over my years, I have, however, gone through periods of distress over my perceived vulnerability in this world.
The article titled SA Assumptive World discusses the effect of trauma on basic assumptions…The results of the study showed that… the traumatized looked at world with less meaning and the environment is threatening to them. This makes sense… when my aunt lost her only two daughters and grandson to an automobile accident her world became less meaningful for many years… She sees the environment in a much more threatening manner after experiencing the trauma of losing her children who died within seconds after the automobile accident.
I found that the homework was also very interesting. It made me cry a little bit because I’m still currently dealing with a current death. A week before we left my best friend’s 17 year old brother passed away. He had a seizure and fell into a pool. He drowned and it was a sudden accident. I think that his death has really affected me differently than any other because I still can’t comprehend how something like that would happen. He was about to go off to college and start his life; how could it end? I’m still analyzing my feeling about this each day we’re in South Africa.
I have learned that many people have the same general thoughts about what happens after one dies. Not just our class, but cross-culturally people believe in some kind of energy, or spirit, or ghosts, of people who have passed on. To me, this just means that there are more spiritual or ghostly events that people have witnessed and experienced throughout the years, and this is very comforting to me. I like to think that my grandpa is watching over me and taking care of me and comforting me. I dream about him all the time, and this is very comforting to me, and I take this as a sign that he is still around me. It makes me happy to know that other people feel the same way as me.
Coming from a traditional African American household, the concept of death is just as avoided as in any other American household. We do not deal with it primarily because people are frightened to do so, and you never want to think of the possibility of someone close to you dying, no matter what their age is.
My fear is most likely based off my ignorance for it. I have never had a person close to me die. The immediate family that has died, the situation has been avoided… My personal experience with death is when my half brother died and my dad told a story about how he had a dream about my disabled brother running around an open field under a rainbow, this was my dads recognition that my brother had gone to a better place. When my grandparents died (my dad’s parents) there was no story to let us see our grandparents in a better place. In reality there has not been any real closure with these family members because there was not a funeral or memorial like a memory box, there isn’t even a grave only an urn that I have not seen.
During my own grandmother’s funeral I felt the need to resist from crying in order to be “strong”. My Dad and I would both try to lighten the mood in any way that we could. After the ceremony, little was said and people quietly dealt with their grief. In the Xhosa tradition, death is not something that is dealt with alone. In fact, as was stated in the readings, most cultures have very extensive traditions around the burial and bereavement processes that we lack in our individualist society.
In lecture and our readings, we delved more into the greater scope of death and its implications. Learning the timeline of how we’ve historically looked at death, from the Tame Death to Death Denied, I realize that regardless of where the rest of society fits in right now, my family is defiantly in the “Death of the Other” mindset. We see the death of loved ones in a very emotional, spiritual lens. We find our separation from them just about intolerable and are intrigued by the notion of a spiritual afterlife where we would hope to see them again. I think my family does tend to think of death as something outside of us, something that happens to us, mainly because the deaths we’ve experienced lately have been accidents. In the span of two years, I lost two younger cousins… Both deaths were viewed as accidents that weren’t supposed to happen to two children who had their whole lives ahead of them. It is useful to learn these things, because certain aspects of my family and how we deal with death seem much clearer to me in light of this.
We talked about the Kubler – Ross stages of death. This was definitely my favorite lecture… I looked back at death of my grandma and she exhibited all of the stages. If I would have known that at the time I would not have been diagnostic but probably more understanding towards what she was experiencing and less fearful of what was to come. This can teach us all to be more empathetic and to perhaps put ourselves in another’s shoes.
Another aspect of death that is covered in both our homework and Kubler-Ross’s book is resolving unfinished business before we die. The pain of living with unresolved conflicts, nagging resentments, and repressed guilt and anger are factors that can contribute to unfinished business. When I experienced a loved one dying in a sudden way, my suffering afterward was immense. At first, I felt cut off from any possibility of healing or concluding my relationship. I believe when this happens, we are challenged to communicate all of our conflicting emotions, frustrations, and unexpressed regrets. However, whatever we couldn't express before our loved one died, we can still express after the death.
We then changed topics and discussed the two other readings, “Embalming” and “The Body”… I could understand a lot of the biological aspects of what happens to the body and why/how, so this was helpful. However, I couldn’t help but imagine that my grandpa’s body went through those awful processes. What “The Body” article made me realize, though, is that the body is just a bunch of chemical reactions that allow a person to remain alive. They way I feel is that the body works the same (for the average healthy individual) for everyone, yet we all have different spirits, and that’s what makes us who we are. Our brains work in the same ways, yet there are so many different kinds of people and ways of thinking. This article was almost therapeutic, oddly enough, because it helped me realize that the body is just a body, it’s not our spirit; it’s not our thoughts and feelings.
The Intriguing
After Vicki’s we went to class. The discussion was short but very interesting. I particularly liked it when people shared their stories for the homework assignment. It made me feel less awkward about believing in spirits and the afterlife. I’ve always believed in these things but have never gotten the chance to voice my feelings.
Likewise, though I don’t believe in it, and it doesn’t quite fit in my realm of rationality, I found the South African and Asian “ancestor worship” traditions enthralling. When I, personally am thinking of those I love that have passed, I ask them to be with me, to look over me. But it’s so intriguing to learn about the extent to which the South Africans have to please their ancestors…
It was intriguing to hear so many of my classmates speaking of their experiences with spirits. And how once they found out the truth about a particular cold room or a shadow the strangeness disappeared. It seemed that these spirits were waiting for some type of closure, it makes me wonder in areas in which cultures want to make certain that the soul in content and will be at a peaceful world, do they experience more or less of these experiences?
The next reading was the “SA Funerals” article. One thing that interested me is that the Bantu buried the deceased’s personal belongings with them. This was because no one else would even think about using those belongings because they had that idea of ‘infectivity,’ which meant that if they did use the person’s item, they might be infected or cursed with death also. This was interesting to me because in our culture, many family members want to keep their deceased loved one’s belongings as a way to remember them.
What caught my attention the most during this reading was the end, because it spoke of the afterlife as being “…a wall or a door?” For many cultures and people it is definitely seen as a door, because they all come to one point and conclusion and that is that everyone has a spirit or soul and it must go somewhere. I learned that my religion and culture does not closely relate to the Xhosa’s, but some of their principles are great and strict and I think that we as Americans need more structure and rules in our lives.
Overall, today I learned a lot about death and dying, mostly from the readings and lecture. Learning about the different ways that people grieve and what different rituals they perform made me realize how much time and respect families and friends give to their loved ones who have passed on. I was glad to see that people don’t just “forget” about the deceased, and that they actually spend time and allow themselves to mourn and come to terms with the death, and the specific rituals they perform are giving them that sense of closure.
The readings for today were fascinating because they covered a wide range of topics from how AIDS patients deal with dying and how their loved ones cope with the loss to unusual burial practices. AIDS patients or those that have a loved one with AIDS exhibit two themes when dealing with dying: “there is not much you can do” and “it will make me a better person” (Demmer, 867). The sense of powerlessness, not being able to help the dying, changes what you think you can control, and leads one to realize what new attributes you gained through the difficult period.
Today we were able to have Sister Williams talk to us about her life in dealing with and nurturing people who are going through the process of dying and death in her role of being a caregiver over the years. Everything that she was talking about related directly to what we were reading and experiencing since we’ve been in Cape Town and what stuck out most to me is that she stated “man is destined to die…and we must talk about death because when it happens, then you are prepared.”
The Effects
In the text, I read a quote of Bill Moyers: “Looking at death taught me about living.” To the chagrin of probably most back home, I am really interested in the subject of death. It has always fascinated me, and I don’t think that that is particularly morose. I’m so intrigued, as I know everyone is, in what is going to happen to me.
The lack of discussion about death is not good for the spirit and soul of an individual. This is because one is not allowed to express their emotions and natural curiosities regarding death. Without these conversations and raising awareness about the neutrality of death, the stigma will continue and one will continue to fear death.
Coming home from the shebeen, we had some readings on bereavement and burial rituals. You know, you grow up in your own protected and structured world, and before you take that first step out into the world on your own, you think your family and your own society tells you everything you need to know. Never before this trip have I questioned such things in my life as the way I grieve and the way my culture partakes in funerals. It’s beneficial to have an open mind about things, because you learn new ways of doing things.
I learned about myself that many of the bereavement processes that the different cultures go through is something that I wish I would be able to experience in my own culture, because I honestly think that it would take away some of the awkwardness that death tends to offer.
Ultimately I have learned a lot about myself through this journey. I expected to see extreme poverty, lack of organization and education. I did not expect to learn that I fear death as much as I do, I did not expect to learn that I have never taken the necessary steps to have ultimate closure with my loved ones. In reality the university is necessary in learning how to learn, especially in learning about ones self.
So far all of the required readings, class discussions, fieldwork and fieldtrips have allowed me to see much more clearly how my culture differs from other cultures such as in South Africa. After reading and seeing how people in other cultures cope with death and are more comfortable talking about it made me realize how I should make an effort in my life to see it as a more natural event that is for certain to take place in life. Also, I have also become more appreciative of what I have in the United States and tend to take for granted. After seeing the struggles many people go through in South Africa just to make it to the next day is devastating and makes me realize how each day of life is so precious.
After reflecting on the first two weeks I feel very blessed. I really did not think that I would have the spiritual awakening I ended up receiving. It’s an amazing feeling to be where I am now. Most people won’t ever get to experience what I’m experiencing and see what I’m seeing so I’m very thankful for that. When I originally signed up for the class I was very apprehensive just because of the subject matter; I thought it would be morose and depressing. I actually found that to be contrary of what I’m experiencing. Learning so much about death has really enlightened me about life and the quality of living in particular.
The more I learn about death and dying the more I want to know and the more people I meet the more friendlier I become. I am 100% confident that this trip has changed me for the better and I will come home a more positive person that does not take my life for granted.