“The funniest thing about dying is how much we, the living, ask of the dying; how we beg them to make it easy on us.”
When I read this line in the essay for class, it really sparked a reaction in me. I remembered how I felt with my grandparents going into their deaths and how I actually found myself wishing at times that they would just die to get it over with so I could stop hearing about how they were getting worse or how there was "no helping them at this point" except to make them comfortable. I thin that the author felt this during her father's sickness as well. He was getting worse and worse and she had to watch him get worse and feel the pain that came from that. She also had to keep giving money to the hospital to keep him comfortable and happy. It is almost as if she, like many people dealing with a dying loved one, was thinking "it would be easier for him to just die so I could just start grieving and getting over it." After looking back on it, I think she can see how futile it is to want such a thing and feels that she was lucky to have the time before he died to have her last moments with him. As someone who sort of had the dying "make it easy" by dying unexpectedly, I can also see how it is kind of funny to ask that of the dying. If the death is prolonged we want it to speed up and be over to which we will feel the guilt for even having the thought but, if it happens too fast, we feel the loss and anguish that we didn't get the sufficient time to really say goodbye and make peace with the person.
Basically, there is no winning situation when losing a loved one. To think that there is a way to make it easy is just a morbid joke that the author's father, Harvey, would probably have gotten a chuckle out of.
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I really do have to agree with you about the comment with grandparents. I miss my great grandmother, but when I was a kid I used to wish she would just die so we could move on. Reading this essay brought back those memories and I can totally relate with how the author views these things.
ReplyDeleteAfter I read that line, it was like an epiphany. I didn't realize how we treated dying people until I read it. It is so true! It's kind of like we want them to fake feeling better, just so we can feel better about it.
ReplyDeleteI really like your last paragraph about how there is no "winning situation when losing a loved one."
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like Smith's father really would have appreciated a joke made, even, about his own death.