Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Terminall Illness as it Relates to The Upside of Anger
For this blog entry, I thought I would attempt to relate it to the movie we just viewed, The Upside of Anger. I loved this movie. I thought it was a great choice for this class. At first I had a hard time wondering how I could relate my blog topic of terminal illness in middle adulthood to this film. However, the more I thought about it the more I figured it out. Wether a person dies of terminal illness, of a freak accident or abandons their family, the family still has to deal with the loss. I suppose some of the emotions that they experience are different, being that with terminal illness you know the inevitable will occur, while with unexpected death, it catches the family off guard. However, I am not convinced this makes the loss any easier; the feeling is still there. In The Upside of Anger, Grey's family was devestated that he was gone; even when they thought he left with his secretary, they, especially Terry, experienced feelings of being lost without him as well as wondering if there was something else she should have done that would have stopped the events from occurring. I think families that deal with the loss of their loved ones through terminal illness always wonder if there is something else they could be doing to stop what is happening. They probably go through some of the same feelings of anger and helplessness that Terry experienced. I also thought about the fact that Terry's loss of her husband occurred when she was in middle adulthood. She had dedicated her life to her husband and did not know who she was without him. I think people that have loved ones, especially long time spouses, that die of a terminal illness probably experience some of these same emotions. They wonder what they are supposed to do without their spouse, especially if they have been caring for them for a long time. I think that no matter how the loss of a loved one occurs, the family will be lost as to how to move on from the loss.
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3 comments:
I agree with you Jennifer, losing a loved one to terminal illness can be tough on a family. My uncle who was only 53 just passed away from cancer. Although, I was not that close to him, he was still my family. He was very sweet, and he loved to talk on the phone. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with cancer and they only gave him 6 months to live with chemo. He has 3 children, the oldest one being twenty and the youngest about 18. It was sad to hear how they were dealing with their father dying. Actually, they did not deal with it. He would call them to come see him, and they would not answer. I will probably not see them again until my grandmother's funeral, but I wonder how they will accept their father's death later in life when they have matured a little. The one good thing was they built him a box for his ashes. I feel that terminal illness and loss is very hard to deal with. I know when I get married and spend my life with someone, I hope that this does not happen, but I doubt I would be prepared if it were to occur.
Loss is hard at any stage of life but I know that having a family member pass away due to terminal cancer is very difficult. When I loss my sister in 2003, I thought my world was over. I experience the stages of grief but unfortunately, I was stuck somewhere in between. It was hard to accept that the only family I had in the world was gone. How I can relate this to your post is that my sister suffered her whole life and the upside of her death was that God finally called an angel home.
The connection with the Upside of Anger and the evolution of your terminal illness topic are on point. No matter where hardship enters, we have a difficult time adjusting. I have observed some families pulling each other through the length of the illness with minor incidences. Then, there were other families that were burdened by the protraction of a long process. There is not a lot of homework you can do to prepare yourself for the unexpected, but if you have loved that person unconditionally, I feel you will be more at peace with yourself when the end comes.
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