HW 52

Precis:
 June Knights Nadle: Morticians Diaries: Nadle gives a recollection of true stories from her career as a mortician, starting each chapter explaining how death impacted her life and ending them with a story from a client then her final thoughts on it. She writes hoping to give insight to death and to show from a perspective of dead-honest truth from a life spent with death
Quotes:
 "....Eric would learn and grow from this death. Events such as this help most of us to mature, becoming more aware of the fragility of life and better appreciating our loved ones while they are still with us" (pg 97)

"Somtimes we worry so much about our reputaion that we put what others think before what's really important in life: the people we love most."(pg 102)

" Somtimes in life we learn things the hardest way"(pg 108)

"Confronting this reality [death] brings with it a kind of peace that denial never offers. It allows us to imbrace life, in all its fleeting glory and suffering" (pg 130)

  The final third of the book was about how to learn and grow from death and care of the dead.  This one story tells of a person who was gay but because of his choise his parents rejected him. Little did they know  his time was about to be up due to AIDS. When he did die his parents felt horrible for not getting intouch with their son and learned that life is to short to hold grudges. In another story a father was tormented by the death of his daughter because of how he treated her. Because he was diapointed in the fact that his child was a girl and not a boy he took it out on her but when she died he was tormeented for the words he could not take back. It was made aware that people in the U.S try to hide death by not being involved and letting others take care of our loved ones. Also becasue of the emotional shock death brings to those who shun it, they fear it. The following quote answers why very well:
"Confronting this reality [death] brings with it a kind of peace that denial never offers. It allows us to imbrace life, in all its fleeting glory and suffering" (pg 130)
 I agree with this quote, when people try to deny the inevitable, they will be thrown for a loop when it happens. Some people take life for granted and are especially devistated at the loss of a loved one. When we accept it as part of life, for which it is, one can not only know how to understand how to deal with death but how to apprecaite life for all its worth and enjoy the short time we have alive. This reminds me of the food unit in the way it showed how understanding can lead to enjoyment. When I began the food unit I thought it was simple, you eat food, some is good for you and some is bad. Even though I knew this I didnt elaborate and remained ignorant in my food way, partly because I did not want to find fault in the way I was living. As the unit went on and I saw the opposing view points I learned to see the nightmare behind my  foodways and made changes to it, and becasue of so was not only happy but wiser in my food ways.