My name is Ashton Crawford and I am a sophmore accounting major. I am in this class to fulfill the core reuirment and I have not had any recent death experiences.
I am Hilda Kahmann. I am a sophomore nursing student and I am taking this class because it is required to minor in gerontology. I have had many experiences with death in the past and recently. One of my friends passed away just over christmas break and with my job I deal with death on a nearly regular basis.
Hi! My name is Laura Barfield, and I am a junior Communications/Creative Writing major. I took this class to fulfill my core requirements, but it also sounded interesting to me. Recently, my great aunt passed away from brain cancer after battling it for 2 years. My great uncle converted to Catholicism right after she passed (he reasoned that he wants to "go to the same heaven" that she does), and has been claiming that she performs miracles for him all the time. This obviously has been a huge topic of discussion in my family, because most of us think he is insane... I think it will be really interesting to learn about how others perceive death, and how they deal with it afterwards since this is an ongoing thing in my family currently.
Hello, my name is Emily Carney and I am from Louisville, KY. I am a senior Elementary Education major. I am taking this class in order to fill my philosophy requirements in order to graduate in May. I also think it sounds a like an interesting course, even though death is something I as well as many others do not like or even know how to deal with. I do have a recent death related experience that I do not like to talk about to people that do not know what occurred. I can though briefly write about it on here. About a year and a half ago (on my birthday) I got a phone call from my mom saying that my 17 year old brother and his best friend Greg were in an accident on Greg's family farm. My mom assured me my brother was going to be ok but not Greg. Greg to me was like a younger brother. His family and my family were/are best of friends. Greg's older brother went to school with me as well. Greg and my brother collided on ATV's which caused Greg to be thrown off of his ATV into a fence. I do not want to go into much detail because it brings back bad memories. The last image I have of Greg is when I arrived to the hospital in Louisville and saw the helicopter that airlifted Greg in arrive. I remember when Greg's dad came out into the waiting room and told the 30 plus people there for Greg that he was gone. I could not stop crying for days. I remember asking why? Why on my birthday does this have to happen? How will my brother live without his best friend? To this day I still ask those questions. I may not ever know why it occurred but I do believe everything happens for a reason.
My name is Roslyn Day and I am a sophomore nursing major. I am taking this class because it is required. As I mentioned in class, my Grandmother died last April and my Aunt just passed away in November. My Grandmother's death was sudden and unexpected, while my Aunt's death was a little different. She was admitted to the hospital for confusion and it turned into a long process of complication after complication and we eventually had to take her off of life support. There is one other experience I had with death that I didn't mention in class. One of my friend's in high school decided to take his own life during our junior year. It was a very sad and shocking experience.
My name is Lydia Duvall and I am a senior biology major and Spanish minor. I am taking this course because I graduate in May and still need to fulfill my six credit hour core requirement in philosophy. I had several philosophy classes that I could have chosen, but with one day being a physician I wanted to learn more about the philosophy of death and dying and how to cope or deal with certain issues. I have had no close experiences with death, thankfully. I am looking forward to what this class will teach me!
Hi my name is Jackie Raabe and I'm one of the sophomore nursing majors. I'm not ready to share anything on death due to a very recent experience. I'll bounce back soon enough.
My name is Emilee Buchanan and my year and major are not who I am. So as for now, I am Emilee with 2e's please. I am in this class because it was offered at the most convenient time for my schedule. An experience with death. I think the most interesting one is the one when I was a small child. In kindergarten my friend and classmate was diagnosed with cancer. I didn't know what cancer was and I didn't really know what death was. I thought cancer and death were equivalent for a long time because the only time I heard about cancer, there was death. This has been proved false now that I am older. So I guess I would like to pose a question to everyone and I welcome you to comment on it. Can death be experienced at a young age? Can an infant experience the death of another?
i think infants can sense other people dealing with a death and they too may notice the absence of the indvidual (depending on the closeness) but until they are older they wont understand what it all means. i didnt really understand at age six.
I believe that young children can experience death, even if they aren't able to understand it. Everyone has some sort of grieving process and I think as we age, our way of grieving changes. Even though young children are still in major stages of development, they can express empathy even if they don't realize that they are doing so. Say a grandparent passes away, and the child sees their mother and father openly mourning with crying and visual sadness, that could have the potential to leave a lasting impression on them that they won't fully understand until they are older and can talk to their mother and father about it, even if it was brought on by another episode of death.
This is a pretty interesting question Emilee... How are you able to tell if an infant can experience death of another? I think that infants can experience loss, as in missing someone, like Kristin said, but I don't believe they fathom the actual experience of death. So they have the experience of someone just not being there any longer, and they may take that experience and perhaps build on it conceptually as they grow older through other experiences, even though they will not necessarily remember that particular incidence... but who is to tell?
I agree with you Jackie. You're right, who is to tell? Maybe when the smart people of this this great world of ours invent time machines and we can alter the past and find out. BUT! back on topic, I don't think an infant can expereince death. I also don't think a child can expereince death until they develop some sort of subconscious. Tori- I love your point about how people make impressions on other people (for you have made a great impression on me). You say a child could observe the mourning of their parents and this leaves a lasting impression on the child. How does this lasting impression stay with a person? I believe that is through the subconscious. My grandfather died two weeks before I was born. I do not think that if he would have died two weeks AFTER I was born I would have been affected differently in any way or that I would have'experienced death.' I do agree that the loss or absence of a person can be felt, but not until that person has the CAPACITY to feel the loss or absence of someone. (which would be a subconscious feeling?)
My name is Hailee Mink, I am a senior nursing major that graduates in May. I work at a facility called New Beginnings K9 Training LLC. We specialize in dogs with fear, anxiety, and aggression. I also have had four years of clinicals, which included seeing and caring for two deaths of patients. One was an 83 year old recovering from a heart attack and surgical procedure, the other was a 2 day old newborn that was accidently smothered by her sleeping mother while breast feeding. With my jobs I experience death frequently, with both humane euthanasia, accidents, and medically related. I have also experienced many deaths of very close family or friends. Having a class with palliative care and hospice really caught my interest, and I decided to take this course also to learn a little bit about more the human nature of death.
my name is kristin myers, i am a sophomore nursing major. i am taking this class because my advisor said it was way more interesting than the other philosopy class that could fit into my schedule. i have had to deal with quite a few deaths in my life. my grandfather died when i was six, and on my eleventh birthday my grandma was found dead in her apartment. but the death of my 15 year old dog was one of the harder things ive dealt with. it seems silly seeing it in words but i guess i just didnt want to let go. i think this class is going to be very interesting because death is an ineveitable part of life and how we deal with it shows our character as people and who we truly are.
My name is Michael Stephens and I am a sophomore biology major. I am in this class, on recommendation from my advisor, to fulfill my metaphysics/epistomology requirement, and because it seemed to be very interesting.
My experiences with death mainly involve my grandparents. My grandfather died when I was eight years old (the average age for a person to first encounter death, according to Professor Barry, the author of the textbook Philosophical Thinking About Death and Dying), but I was too young to remember any of the circumstances now. My most recent experience involved the death of my grandmother. She was advanced in age, but still very active and doing well, when suddenly she developed a stomach ache that was an incurable gastrointestinal (GI) problem. It has been almost a year and a half since this happened, but the experience to me still seems very recent and I am still grappling with her absence in my life.
One disconcerting aspect the textbooks raises is the different definitions of death, specifically with regard to my grandmother. According to the heart-lung definition, my grandmother was still alive, because--with the aid of machinery and different drugs--her heart was still pumping blood. Whether or not her brainstem or brain were still alive or functioning is uncertain, because I was never informed of the results of an EEG or any other tests. However, the doctors had explained that her higher-brain function was not going to come back and that would remain in a comatose or vegetative state. I have not yet settled which definition of death I adhere to, but it is very troubling for me to think that she might have still been alive, even if the grandma I had known would never come back.
I hope I did not get to personal in the above. I just wanted to share my main experience with death (she was the first person I had ever seen die) and apply what the textbook says to this scenario.
My name is Ginny Morrison. I am a sophomore in the nursing program. I am taking this class because I found it to be very interesting and I enjoyed taking Dr. Sherron for a previous philosophy class. I do not have many experiences with death yet. Just a few are : interesting enough when i was 18 months old my heart stopped and I had died on my living room floor then brought back to life (I still have the little outfit, but have no personal memory of it, only what others have told me); when I was about 9 yrs old my great grandmother died; a couple years ago a distant friend had went missing and a year later was found dead (this upset me a lot); and just last spring my best friends grandpa died which was hard to see her and her family go through the loss.. Death can be a very touchy subject for me because I have a family member currently fighting cancer and although he can pull through it I always know there is a chance of being taken away. I believe this class will help me better understand concepts of death and learn to cope with deathly personally and in the field of nursing (where im sure ill see death).
My name is Tori Duncan and I am a senior but a second year nursing student. I chose to take this course because it seemed interesting and it worked with my class schedule. I work at St. Walburg's Monastery in the infirmary as a nurse's aid and have lost 13 sisters in the seven years that I have been there.
Death, as it is with most people, is a difficult subject because it is irreversible and permanent, but I like to think of death as the next step in our journey- whether you meet St. Peter at the pearly gates or get to see Hitler in hell and hope that you don't have a pineapple shoved where pineapples don't need to go (Little Nicky, anyone?). I, personally, view death as a good thing because any suffering is ended, but the uncertainty of what happens after our physical body stops living scares me. What happens? Where do we go? I know these questions are rhetorical and are unanswerable, but it is something to think about.
In my experiences with death, I find that the loss of my cat, Felix, a little over a year and a half ago, has been a very difficult process. That cat was my baby. I adopted him and his brother, Oscar, at six weeks old. They were the cutest balls of fur, and I was a proud kitty-mom. My Felix died suddenly. He was really sick on a Friday and passed away on a Sunday while I was at work. Fortunately, he wasn't alone when he died. My mom held him as he took his final breaths. Even recalling that day brings tears to my eyes. I buried him outside of my bedroom window and think about him everyday. I swear, that the little patch of grass that grows on top of his grave, is a little greener than the rest of the yard. I have wanted to get another kitten to try to help with my grief, but as I still live at home and have other babies to love and take care of (as well as my mom telling me no lol). Some days are better than others, but Felix's brother, Oscar, reminds me everyday of what a wonderful companion Felix was, but damn, who knew I would mourn as much as I do over a cat.
My current, I guess you could call it an experience, with death is not even over someone who has already passed away. My Gram's liver has slowly been failing over the last year and a half or so. Gram has been in recovery for about 30 years or so, and the repercussions of her actions have come back to haunt her. Her doctor gave her anywhere from 1-2 years, and we have entered into the second year (yay us, but terrifying at the same time). This past holiday season was difficult because we, including Gram, weren't sure if she was going to be here. Thankfully she was and it was one of the best holidays that we have had as a family. She is a strong woman and helped my mom raise me, and it has been so painful to watch her go from being this strong, solid woman who stood at 5'0'' who never showed signs of weakness, to this frail, old woman, all within a matter of a year or so. But her spirit has not left her yet, and I am thankful for this small blessing. Every time she has a set back, it seems like the inevitable comes closer and closer, but somehow, Gram has fought it back. For how long, no one knows.
My Gram's condition is another reason I decided to take this course, so that I could hopefully pass on what I have learned to my mom and my family members, and so that I can be strong when the time does come. You can't be afraid of what you understand, and I believe understanding what death really "is" will make me a stronger person overall.
I'm sorry that I have written so much, sometimes the best comfort is talking it out, or in this case, typing it out.
My name is Sam Powers, and I'm a junior Communications major. I'm in this class because I needed to fulfill the core requirement, but also because a course on death and dying seemed more interesting than the other courses being offered.
I only have two real experiences with death that I can remember. The first was when I was a freshman in high school, there was a junior who committed suicide. I knew who he was because I went to a high school with 225 people in it; not 225 in my grade, but in the whole school. The boy was in my brothers' class, but he had a locker right next to mine so we were good friends that year. He always seemed like a really happy and energetic kid which made the news so much more devastating to the whole community when they had heard what happened. I remember my mom getting a call from the boys' father saying that his son was missing and they had search teams going through the woods looking for him. The next day they found his body, and after that I don't really remember much of what happened. I guess part of the reason I was drawn to this class was that I was interested in learning more about the whole death process (I know that sounds creepy...) because I never really could understand how someone could suddenly just be gone, let alone, take their own life so suddenly like I experienced here.
The second was when my grandfather died of a sudden and unexpected heart attack during my junior year of high school. I was old enough to understand it all, but I kind of just couldn't make sense of the fact that one minute he was sitting in his living room watching tv, then the next he was dead. His death had a major impact on my entire family, as he was 'that guy' in our family that was keeping all of the cousins and everyone together by forcing the holiday gatherings, and awkward reunions. Since his death, our family has been really distant and not quite the same.
Hello, my name is Amber Cox. I am a Junior studying Criminal Justice and Sociology. I am in this class to complete the core requirement for Philosophy but also because the course seemed more appealing than others listed. Death, I do not like to think about my own death nor the persons around me because the subject seems depressing and quite frankly scary. I would like to live in this imaginary world where I believe I will live forever in a painless life but let's face it-that's not going to happen. I think the reason I'm most afraid of death and dying in general is related to two experiences:
The first- My best friend died September 9th 2008, my sophomore year of high school which hit me hard. The night before we went back to school I received several text messages from other friends telling me how sorry they are and I didn't get it. I hadn't heard about her death until then. At first I thought it was a joke and told everyone to stop making these lies. However, the next day at school as soon as I walked through the door I quickly knew this was no laughing matter and that she really had died. I was in total shock for the first few weeks because I kept expecting her to walk through the door.
The second- As I mentioned in class I believe I avoided a Final Destination moment when I chose not to visit my grandparents one evening. I was supposed to ride in the car with my cousin Sara to see them in Indiana. Later that day my aunt (her mom) called me crying and telling me what happened. Sara and her one-month-old song had collided with a semi and survived. However, when I seen the pictures it was clear that I would not have because the passenger side was completely caved in, it reached almost to the floor board. I don't like to think that I would have died had I gone with her but it's difficult to deny the evidence.
Hello my name is Kelsi Neal. I transferred here from UK. Last semester was my first semester and TMC is completely different from UK. I am a Junior in the college but only a Freshman in the nursing program. I registered too late in the summer to take some of the Sophomore nursing classes so I have been taking my elective classes this year so I will only have the core nursing classes left to take in the remaining years. Unfortunately, I have dealt with quite a bit of death in my life. When I was born my dads side of the family was all older. So when I was a child I went to many funerals. When I was 15 my older sister suddenly passed away at work. She was 7 months pregnant with my nephew.She was a nurse and one of her fellow nurses gave her CPR until the ambulance came and delivered my nephew. He will be 9 in February. Along with my sister, numerous grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends have passed away. Being around death so much has made me realize that I have a horrible way of coping with it. I act as if it never happened and let it build up inside until it just randomly comes out. My advisor recommended this course for me to take. She said it would be a great course for nursing students.
Hi my name is Jennifer Bravo and I'm a Sophomore Communications major and I'm filling a requirement but I also heard that the class is an interesting one to take .I've not seen death, but death and near death experiences has happened in my family in the past 5 years. About 3 years ago, I lost my aunt to liver cancer, I wasn't there when she passed, but I remember going to the hospital the week before her seat and seeing her in a coma. Just watching her lay there motionless, I wondered if she could hear all the people around her, calling out her name with the hope that she would wake up, yet with no show of movement, everyone felt hopeless. I dodged seeing another death of an aunt last year. My family and I went to go see her in the hospital in the ICU and tears filled my eyes because it's hard to see a loved one who is holding on to their lives and who can only do it by being on life support. She passed a few months later, and it was hard seeing my father mourn over his older sister. My mother has had her shared of suffering, dealing with cancer two times and still fighting. These deaths and near death experiences has made me realize that at any moment, a loved one could be gone, and it's best to cherish every moment you got because it might be your last
Hello my name is Quentin Campbell and I'm a third year Sophomore Majoring in History and Minoring in Political Science. I'm taking this class as a requirement for my major also my adviser told me that this class is interesting. Last semester I did have an experience with death, My cousin died who I was close with when I was younger. I hoping that this class helps me explain what I went through.
Hello, my name is Yip Man Chun. I am an exchange student from Hong Kong and will stay in Thomas More this semester.
I am happy to know that many of my classmates are interesting in this course. Because in my university, there are very few people will be interesting in philosophy and they normally consider it as a course that is useless to them. I supposed to take this course in my university when I was a freshman but my senior schoolmates told me that who took this course in the pass all were end with bad feedbacks. I was soft that time after I considered their advices.
In Chinese, we have a word “緣份”, which has similar meaning of fate in English. I believe it in this time as I am finally taking this course anyway (I choose another philosophy course before but that course was full already then Dr. Cate introduced this course to me). I hope that I can have more interactions with you all in here as it is my purpose of choosing to be an exchange student.
I am often thinking of a question about life after one of my best friend, who I see her as my sister, had early psychosis few years ago and tried to suicide. Now the sick almost be controlled and she can have a normal life and job again.
I started to think at that time: what is the meaning of her life if she got that sick and can’t recover? She only can felt fear, mistrust, danger, and live in her own sealed world while suffer from depression. But is meaning equal to value? No meaning mean that we can take it away? We all wanted she can being with us no matter how she will be. It makes me think of higher-brain dead definition and PVS.
Another question I have is that it seem we always value dead differently according to how important that life to us. So is different dead have different value in social perspective?
My name is Michael Blewett. I am a sophomore biology major. I am in this course to fulfill my core requirements in philosophy, but also because I think this class will be interesting.
Thus far in my life, I have had some close experience with death. As I briefly said on the first day of class, I had a friend who passed away. She was one of my better friends, someone who I could always come to when I needed to talk about something. Well, one day she told me that she had breast cancer. They caught it early, and after having a mastectomy and a couple rounds of chemotherapy, things were looking good. She was in tremendous pain, she had lost all her hair, but the prognosis was good. Fortunately, she did beat it. She was clear about a year or two when it came back, this time with a vengeance. She was a very strong person, and everyone expected her to beat it again. The truth is, she probably would have beaten the cancer, but we will never know. At the same time, she came down with a very nasty infection in her gall bladder. It got to the point where surgeons had to remove her entire gall bladder. When she went in for surgery, they put her under anesthesia, removed it, but she did not wake up. She slipped into a coma from which she was unable to wake up. She passed away roughly 3 weeks after the operation.
This was a hard time, dealing with the loss of a close friend. But more than that, it was my first real experience with death. Since then, I have had the bad fortune to have many more experiences with death. I have seen many family members pass away over the years. My great grandmother died my freshman year of high school. My dad's cousin's husband commit suicide. And just recently, my great uncle died.
Death is something that all of us will be faced with at some point in our lives, and I think that is what makes this class so interesting. It requires that we actually think about death, a subject that many people try to go their whole lives avoiding.
Hello, My name is Bobbie Lynn Warman. I am a sophomore nursing major. I am taking this class because I currently work in geriatrics and we deal with death on a regular bases. I have both professional and personal experience with death. I have worked at a nursing home for five years, 3 as a CNA and 2 as an LPN. As a CNA my role was very different and less stressful than it is now. My main goal was to make the patient as comfortable as possible by changing their positions as needed, keeping them clean, comfort the family by getting them coffee. One time I positioned a patient with a stuffed puppy in there arms, not only to take pressure away from the arm against the body, but maybe they would feel comforted. When the family re-entered they thanked me and were in tears how comfortable and "cute" she looked by the small stuffed animal. Little things matter. Now as a nurse I continue to do all of that and I have more of a responsibility such as giving them medicines for their pain, breathing, secreations all in an attempt to make them comfortable. We sometimes work with hospice which I love because their is almost always someone in the room with them, and as much as i want to stay in the room with them and the family, i find it difficult with 25 other patients to care for. I have also 2 experiences in codes, both residents didnt make it and both to me seem like a very bad way to go, it almost feels violent. I also find it hard for residents to pass with never having family or friends come in. When that happens I try and stay with them, I come and sit after my shift as long as I can until someone can come. Another thing that is hard is seeing some residents living in what I consider a poor quality of life. When they don't have any one come in for them, they cant move, their on a feeding tube, they have no way of expressing to you what they need or want, they are dependent on you for everything. It really makes me sad, even doing everything I can for them I always wonder what are they thinking if at all and I question my self would I want to be in this condition just to be living? Would I want my family members lay like this. Its very hard to think about. I have also had some personal experience with death. The hardest was when I was in high school, my cousin (who I considered my sister cause I didn't have any siblings). She was killed instantly in a car crash. The person who hit her was an older male, slipping into a diabetic coma who woke up in the hospital fine a few days later not knowing what happened. I still feel a lot of blame and anger. On friday I just learned a old friend of mine committed suicide. I lost my uncle from heart failure a few years ago. In high school I had a friend die from a pulmonary embolism. I don't remember how old I was but my younger cousin who was 2, was killed accidentally by his older brother who was 6, by playing with his parents gun and it went off. Right now my uncle has terminal cancer and he was given less than a year to live.
Every death I have experienced has been different. Every way I have dealt with it has been different as well. From my experience for me it has been harder losing someone unexpectedly, because when we have some idea it is coming we have resources to make them as comfortable as can be during the process
Cooper Hill, Middle school ed (social studies/language arts). I've had two very bad deaths in my life; my grandmother passed away two years ago, and this past summer, my best friend's mother passed away from breast cancer.I'm very excited to start this class because of the topic of death. It is a very under rated study that almost everyone considers, but never investigates deeper.
My name is Morgan Cornwell. I am in this class to fulfill core requirements in order to graduate. Experiences I have had with death were not many until this past summer when my graduating class at Bishop Hartley High School lost 2 of its members. So it was a tragedy losing people who were so close to me in tragic accidents.
Hello my name is Judy Allen. I’m taking the course for my gerontology degree. I’ve had plenty of experience with death. I’ve had pets (mostly cats) all my life and we live near a busy road so we’ve had several get hit by cars. I lost both my grandmothers when I was 10 two days apart and my teacher a few months after that. Recently we had to put a cat down because of medical issues and a while ago we had to put down our first and only dog. I’ve also worked in nursing homes since I was 16 so I’ve had several residents whom I’ve been very close to die suddenly or we were expecting it. That’s about it for now. Hope to have a fun year.
My name is Ashton Crawford and I am a sophmore accounting major. I am in this class to fulfill the core reuirment and I have not had any recent death experiences.
ReplyDeleteI am Hilda Kahmann. I am a sophomore nursing student and I am taking this class because it is required to minor in gerontology. I have had many experiences with death in the past and recently. One of my friends passed away just over christmas break and with my job I deal with death on a nearly regular basis.
ReplyDeleteHi! My name is Laura Barfield, and I am a junior Communications/Creative Writing major. I took this class to fulfill my core requirements, but it also sounded interesting to me.
ReplyDeleteRecently, my great aunt passed away from brain cancer after battling it for 2 years. My great uncle converted to Catholicism right after she passed (he reasoned that he wants to "go to the same heaven" that she does), and has been claiming that she performs miracles for him all the time. This obviously has been a huge topic of discussion in my family, because most of us think he is insane... I think it will be really interesting to learn about how others perceive death, and how they deal with it afterwards since this is an ongoing thing in my family currently.
Hello, my name is Emily Carney and I am from Louisville, KY. I am a senior Elementary Education major. I am taking this class in order to fill my philosophy requirements in order to graduate in May. I also think it sounds a like an interesting course, even though death is something I as well as many others do not like or even know how to deal with. I do have a recent death related experience that I do not like to talk about to people that do not know what occurred. I can though briefly write about it on here. About a year and a half ago (on my birthday) I got a phone call from my mom saying that my 17 year old brother and his best friend Greg were in an accident on Greg's family farm. My mom assured me my brother was going to be ok but not Greg. Greg to me was like a younger brother. His family and my family were/are best of friends. Greg's older brother went to school with me as well. Greg and my brother collided on ATV's which caused Greg to be thrown off of his ATV into a fence. I do not want to go into much detail because it brings back bad memories. The last image I have of Greg is when I arrived to the hospital in Louisville and saw the helicopter that airlifted Greg in arrive. I remember when Greg's dad came out into the waiting room and told the 30 plus people there for Greg that he was gone. I could not stop crying for days. I remember asking why? Why on my birthday does this have to happen? How will my brother live without his best friend? To this day I still ask those questions. I may not ever know why it occurred but I do believe everything happens for a reason.
ReplyDeleteAnd let me add, I am a very emotional person!
DeleteMy name is Roslyn Day and I am a sophomore nursing major. I am taking this class because it is required. As I mentioned in class, my Grandmother died last April and my Aunt just passed away in November. My Grandmother's death was sudden and unexpected, while my Aunt's death was a little different. She was admitted to the hospital for confusion and it turned into a long process of complication after complication and we eventually had to take her off of life support. There is one other experience I had with death that I didn't mention in class. One of my friend's in high school decided to take his own life during our junior year. It was a very sad and shocking experience.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Lydia Duvall and I am a senior biology major and Spanish minor. I am taking this course because I graduate in May and still need to fulfill my six credit hour core requirement in philosophy. I had several philosophy classes that I could have chosen, but with one day being a physician I wanted to learn more about the philosophy of death and dying and how to cope or deal with certain issues. I have had no close experiences with death, thankfully. I am looking forward to what this class will teach me!
ReplyDeleteHi my name is Jackie Raabe and I'm one of the sophomore nursing majors. I'm not ready to share anything on death due to a very recent experience. I'll bounce back soon enough.
ReplyDeleteO yeah, I took this course because I thought it would help and it would be useful and applicable to a career as a nurse.
DeleteMy name is Emilee Buchanan and my year and major are not who I am. So as for now, I am Emilee with 2e's please. I am in this class because it was offered at the most convenient time for my schedule.
ReplyDeleteAn experience with death. I think the most interesting one is the one when I was a small child. In kindergarten my friend and classmate was diagnosed with cancer. I didn't know what cancer was and I didn't really know what death was. I thought cancer and death were equivalent for a long time because the only time I heard about cancer, there was death. This has been proved false now that I am older.
So I guess I would like to pose a question to everyone and I welcome you to comment on it. Can death be experienced at a young age? Can an infant experience the death of another?
i think infants can sense other people dealing with a death and they too may notice the absence of the indvidual (depending on the closeness) but until they are older they wont understand what it all means. i didnt really understand at age six.
DeleteI believe that young children can experience death, even if they aren't able to understand it. Everyone has some sort of grieving process and I think as we age, our way of grieving changes. Even though young children are still in major stages of development, they can express empathy even if they don't realize that they are doing so. Say a grandparent passes away, and the child sees their mother and father openly mourning with crying and visual sadness, that could have the potential to leave a lasting impression on them that they won't fully understand until they are older and can talk to their mother and father about it, even if it was brought on by another episode of death.
DeleteThis is a pretty interesting question Emilee... How are you able to tell if an infant can experience death of another? I think that infants can experience loss, as in missing someone, like Kristin said, but I don't believe they fathom the actual experience of death. So they have the experience of someone just not being there any longer, and they may take that experience and perhaps build on it conceptually as they grow older through other experiences, even though they will not necessarily remember that particular incidence... but who is to tell?
DeleteI agree with you Jackie. You're right, who is to tell? Maybe when the smart people of this this great world of ours invent time machines and we can alter the past and find out.
DeleteBUT! back on topic, I don't think an infant can expereince death. I also don't think a child can expereince death until they develop some sort of subconscious. Tori- I love your point about how people make impressions on other people (for you have made a great impression on me). You say a child could observe the mourning of their parents and this leaves a lasting impression on the child. How does this lasting impression stay with a person? I believe that is through the subconscious.
My grandfather died two weeks before I was born. I do not think that if he would have died two weeks AFTER I was born I would have been affected differently in any way or that I would have'experienced death.'
I do agree that the loss or absence of a person can be felt, but not until that person has the CAPACITY to feel the loss or absence of someone. (which would be a subconscious feeling?)
My name is Hailee Mink, I am a senior nursing major that graduates in May. I work at a facility called New Beginnings K9 Training LLC. We specialize in dogs with fear, anxiety, and aggression. I also have had four years of clinicals, which included seeing and caring for two deaths of patients. One was an 83 year old recovering from a heart attack and surgical procedure, the other was a 2 day old newborn that was accidently smothered by her sleeping mother while breast feeding. With my jobs I experience death frequently, with both humane euthanasia, accidents, and medically related. I have also experienced many deaths of very close family or friends. Having a class with palliative care and hospice really caught my interest, and I decided to take this course also to learn a little bit about more the human nature of death.
ReplyDeletemy name is kristin myers, i am a sophomore nursing major. i am taking this class because my advisor said it was way more interesting than the other philosopy class that could fit into my schedule. i have had to deal with quite a few deaths in my life. my grandfather died when i was six, and on my eleventh birthday my grandma was found dead in her apartment. but the death of my 15 year old dog was one of the harder things ive dealt with. it seems silly seeing it in words but i guess i just didnt want to let go. i think this class is going to be very interesting because death is an ineveitable part of life and how we deal with it shows our character as people and who we truly are.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Michael Stephens and I am a sophomore biology major. I am in this class, on recommendation from my advisor, to fulfill my metaphysics/epistomology requirement, and because it seemed to be very interesting.
ReplyDeleteMy experiences with death mainly involve my grandparents. My grandfather died when I was eight years old (the average age for a person to first encounter death, according to Professor Barry, the author of the textbook Philosophical Thinking About Death and Dying), but I was too young to remember any of the circumstances now. My most recent experience involved the death of my grandmother. She was advanced in age, but still very active and doing well, when suddenly she developed a stomach ache that was an incurable gastrointestinal (GI) problem. It has been almost a year and a half since this happened, but the experience to me still seems very recent and I am still grappling with her absence in my life.
One disconcerting aspect the textbooks raises is the different definitions of death, specifically with regard to my grandmother. According to the heart-lung definition, my grandmother was still alive, because--with the aid of machinery and different drugs--her heart was still pumping blood. Whether or not her brainstem or brain were still alive or functioning is uncertain, because I was never informed of the results of an EEG or any other tests. However, the doctors had explained that her higher-brain function was not going to come back and that would remain in a comatose or vegetative state. I have not yet settled which definition of death I adhere to, but it is very troubling for me to think that she might have still been alive, even if the grandma I had known would never come back.
I hope I did not get to personal in the above. I just wanted to share my main experience with death (she was the first person I had ever seen die) and apply what the textbook says to this scenario.
My name is Ginny Morrison. I am a sophomore in the nursing program. I am taking this class because I found it to be very interesting and I enjoyed taking Dr. Sherron for a previous philosophy class. I do not have many experiences with death yet. Just a few are : interesting enough when i was 18 months old my heart stopped and I had died on my living room floor then brought back to life (I still have the little outfit, but have no personal memory of it, only what others have told me); when I was about 9 yrs old my great grandmother died; a couple years ago a distant friend had went missing and a year later was found dead (this upset me a lot); and just last spring my best friends grandpa died which was hard to see her and her family go through the loss.. Death can be a very touchy subject for me because I have a family member currently fighting cancer and although he can pull through it I always know there is a chance of being taken away. I believe this class will help me better understand concepts of death and learn to cope with deathly personally and in the field of nursing (where im sure ill see death).
ReplyDeleteMy name is Tori Duncan and I am a senior but a second year nursing student. I chose to take this course because it seemed interesting and it worked with my class schedule. I work at St. Walburg's Monastery in the infirmary as a nurse's aid and have lost 13 sisters in the seven years that I have been there.
ReplyDeleteDeath, as it is with most people, is a difficult subject because it is irreversible and permanent, but I like to think of death as the next step in our journey- whether you meet St. Peter at the pearly gates or get to see Hitler in hell and hope that you don't have a pineapple shoved where pineapples don't need to go (Little Nicky, anyone?). I, personally, view death as a good thing because any suffering is ended, but the uncertainty of what happens after our physical body stops living scares me. What happens? Where do we go? I know these questions are rhetorical and are unanswerable, but it is something to think about.
In my experiences with death, I find that the loss of my cat, Felix, a little over a year and a half ago, has been a very difficult process. That cat was my baby. I adopted him and his brother, Oscar, at six weeks old. They were the cutest balls of fur, and I was a proud kitty-mom. My Felix died suddenly. He was really sick on a Friday and passed away on a Sunday while I was at work. Fortunately, he wasn't alone when he died. My mom held him as he took his final breaths. Even recalling that day brings tears to my eyes. I buried him outside of my bedroom window and think about him everyday. I swear, that the little patch of grass that grows on top of his grave, is a little greener than the rest of the yard. I have wanted to get another kitten to try to help with my grief, but as I still live at home and have other babies to love and take care of (as well as my mom telling me no lol). Some days are better than others, but Felix's brother, Oscar, reminds me everyday of what a wonderful companion Felix was, but damn, who knew I would mourn as much as I do over a cat.
My current, I guess you could call it an experience, with death is not even over someone who has already passed away. My Gram's liver has slowly been failing over the last year and a half or so. Gram has been in recovery for about 30 years or so, and the repercussions of her actions have come back to haunt her. Her doctor gave her anywhere from 1-2 years, and we have entered into the second year (yay us, but terrifying at the same time). This past holiday season was difficult because we, including Gram, weren't sure if she was going to be here. Thankfully she was and it was one of the best holidays that we have had as a family. She is a strong woman and helped my mom raise me, and it has been so painful to watch her go from being this strong, solid woman who stood at 5'0'' who never showed signs of weakness, to this frail, old woman, all within a matter of a year or so. But her spirit has not left her yet, and I am thankful for this small blessing. Every time she has a set back, it seems like the inevitable comes closer and closer, but somehow, Gram has fought it back. For how long, no one knows.
My Gram's condition is another reason I decided to take this course, so that I could hopefully pass on what I have learned to my mom and my family members, and so that I can be strong when the time does come. You can't be afraid of what you understand, and I believe understanding what death really "is" will make me a stronger person overall.
I'm sorry that I have written so much, sometimes the best comfort is talking it out, or in this case, typing it out.
My name is Sam Powers, and I'm a junior Communications major. I'm in this class because I needed to fulfill the core requirement, but also because a course on death and dying seemed more interesting than the other courses being offered.
ReplyDeleteI only have two real experiences with death that I can remember.
The first was when I was a freshman in high school, there was a junior who committed suicide. I knew who he was because I went to a high school with 225 people in it; not 225 in my grade, but in the whole school. The boy was in my brothers' class, but he had a locker right next to mine so we were good friends that year. He always seemed like a really happy and energetic kid which made the news so much more devastating to the whole community when they had heard what happened. I remember my mom getting a call from the boys' father saying that his son was missing and they had search teams going through the woods looking for him. The next day they found his body, and after that I don't really remember much of what happened. I guess part of the reason I was drawn to this class was that I was interested in learning more about the whole death process (I know that sounds creepy...) because I never really could understand how someone could suddenly just be gone, let alone, take their own life so suddenly like I experienced here.
The second was when my grandfather died of a sudden and unexpected heart attack during my junior year of high school. I was old enough to understand it all, but I kind of just couldn't make sense of the fact that one minute he was sitting in his living room watching tv, then the next he was dead. His death had a major impact on my entire family, as he was 'that guy' in our family that was keeping all of the cousins and everyone together by forcing the holiday gatherings, and awkward reunions. Since his death, our family has been really distant and not quite the same.
Hello, my name is Amber Cox. I am a Junior studying Criminal Justice and Sociology. I am in this class to complete the core requirement for Philosophy but also because the course seemed more appealing than others listed.
ReplyDeleteDeath, I do not like to think about my own death nor the persons around me because the subject seems depressing and quite frankly scary. I would like to live in this imaginary world where I believe I will live forever in a painless life but let's face it-that's not going to happen.
I think the reason I'm most afraid of death and dying in general is related to two experiences:
The first- My best friend died September 9th 2008, my sophomore year of high school which hit me hard. The night before we went back to school I received several text messages from other friends telling me how sorry they are and I didn't get it. I hadn't heard about her death until then. At first I thought it was a joke and told everyone to stop making these lies. However, the next day at school as soon as I walked through the door I quickly knew this was no laughing matter and that she really had died. I was in total shock for the first few weeks because I kept expecting her to walk through the door.
The second- As I mentioned in class I believe I avoided a Final Destination moment when I chose not to visit my grandparents one evening. I was supposed to ride in the car with my cousin Sara to see them in Indiana. Later that day my aunt (her mom) called me crying and telling me what happened. Sara and her one-month-old song had collided with a semi and survived. However, when I seen the pictures it was clear that I would not have because the passenger side was completely caved in, it reached almost to the floor board. I don't like to think that I would have died had I gone with her but it's difficult to deny the evidence.
Hello my name is Kelsi Neal. I transferred here from UK. Last semester was my first semester and TMC is completely different from UK. I am a Junior in the college but only a Freshman in the nursing program. I registered too late in the summer to take some of the Sophomore nursing classes so I have been taking my elective classes this year so I will only have the core nursing classes left to take in the remaining years.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I have dealt with quite a bit of death in my life. When I was born my dads side of the family was all older. So when I was a child I went to many funerals. When I was 15 my older sister suddenly passed away at work. She was 7 months pregnant with my nephew.She was a nurse and one of her fellow nurses gave her CPR until the ambulance came and delivered my nephew. He will be 9 in February. Along with my sister, numerous grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends have passed away. Being around death so much has made me realize that I have a horrible way of coping with it. I act as if it never happened and let it build up inside until it just randomly comes out.
My advisor recommended this course for me to take. She said it would be a great course for nursing students.
Hi my name is Jennifer Bravo and I'm a Sophomore Communications major and I'm filling a requirement but I also heard that the class is an interesting one to take .I've not seen death, but death and near death experiences has happened in my family in the past 5 years. About 3 years ago, I lost my aunt to liver cancer, I wasn't there when she passed, but I remember going to the hospital the week before her seat and seeing her in a coma. Just watching her lay there motionless, I wondered if she could hear all the people around her, calling out her name with the hope that she would wake up, yet with no show of movement, everyone felt hopeless. I dodged seeing another death of an aunt last year. My family and I went to go see her in the hospital in the ICU and tears filled my eyes because it's hard to see a loved one who is holding on to their lives and who can only do it by being on life support. She passed a few months later, and it was hard seeing my father mourn over his older sister. My mother has had her shared of suffering, dealing with cancer two times and still fighting. These deaths and near death experiences has made me realize that at any moment, a loved one could be gone, and it's best to cherish every moment you got because it might be your last
ReplyDeleteHello my name is Quentin Campbell and I'm a third year Sophomore Majoring in History and Minoring in Political Science. I'm taking this class as a requirement for my major also my adviser told me that this class is interesting. Last semester I did have an experience with death, My cousin died who I was close with when I was younger. I hoping that this class helps me explain what I went through.
ReplyDeleteHello, my name is Yip Man Chun. I am an exchange student from Hong Kong and will stay in Thomas More this semester.
ReplyDeleteI am happy to know that many of my classmates are interesting in this course. Because in my university, there are very few people will be interesting in philosophy and they normally consider it as a course that is useless to them. I supposed to take this course in my university when I was a freshman but my senior schoolmates told me that who took this course in the pass all were end with bad feedbacks. I was soft that time after I considered their advices.
In Chinese, we have a word “緣份”, which has similar meaning of fate in English. I believe it in this time as I am finally taking this course anyway (I choose another philosophy course before but that course was full already then Dr. Cate introduced this course to me). I hope that I can have more interactions with you all in here as it is my purpose of choosing to be an exchange student.
I am often thinking of a question about life after one of my best friend, who I see her as my sister, had early psychosis few years ago and tried to suicide. Now the sick almost be controlled and she can have a normal life and job again.
I started to think at that time: what is the meaning of her life if she got that sick and can’t recover? She only can felt fear, mistrust, danger, and live in her own sealed world while suffer from depression. But is meaning equal to value? No meaning mean that we can take it away? We all wanted she can being with us no matter how she will be. It makes me think of higher-brain dead definition and PVS.
Another question I have is that it seem we always value dead differently according to how important that life to us. So is different dead have different value in social perspective?
My name is Michael Blewett. I am a sophomore biology major. I am in this course to fulfill my core requirements in philosophy, but also because I think this class will be interesting.
ReplyDeleteThus far in my life, I have had some close experience with death. As I briefly said on the first day of class, I had a friend who passed away. She was one of my better friends, someone who I could always come to when I needed to talk about something. Well, one day she told me that she had breast cancer. They caught it early, and after having a mastectomy and a couple rounds of chemotherapy, things were looking good. She was in tremendous pain, she had lost all her hair, but the prognosis was good. Fortunately, she did beat it. She was clear about a year or two when it came back, this time with a vengeance. She was a very strong person, and everyone expected her to beat it again. The truth is, she probably would have beaten the cancer, but we will never know. At the same time, she came down with a very nasty infection in her gall bladder. It got to the point where surgeons had to remove her entire gall bladder. When she went in for surgery, they put her under anesthesia, removed it, but she did not wake up. She slipped into a coma from which she was unable to wake up. She passed away roughly 3 weeks after the operation.
This was a hard time, dealing with the loss of a close friend. But more than that, it was my first real experience with death. Since then, I have had the bad fortune to have many more experiences with death. I have seen many family members pass away over the years. My great grandmother died my freshman year of high school. My dad's cousin's husband commit suicide. And just recently, my great uncle died.
Death is something that all of us will be faced with at some point in our lives, and I think that is what makes this class so interesting. It requires that we actually think about death, a subject that many people try to go their whole lives avoiding.
Hello, My name is Bobbie Lynn Warman. I am a sophomore nursing major. I am taking this class because I currently work in geriatrics and we deal with death on a regular bases. I have both professional and personal experience with death. I have worked at a nursing home for five years, 3 as a CNA and 2 as an LPN. As a CNA my role was very different and less stressful than it is now. My main goal was to make the patient as comfortable as possible by changing their positions as needed, keeping them clean, comfort the family by getting them coffee. One time I positioned a patient with a stuffed puppy in there arms, not only to take pressure away from the arm against the body, but maybe they would feel comforted. When the family re-entered they thanked me and were in tears how comfortable and "cute" she looked by the small stuffed animal. Little things matter. Now as a nurse I continue to do all of that and I have more of a responsibility such as giving them medicines for their pain, breathing, secreations all in an attempt to make them comfortable. We sometimes work with hospice which I love because their is almost always someone in the room with them, and as much as i want to stay in the room with them and the family, i find it difficult with 25 other patients to care for. I have also 2 experiences in codes, both residents didnt make it and both to me seem like a very bad way to go, it almost feels violent. I also find it hard for residents to pass with never having family or friends come in. When that happens I try and stay with them, I come and sit after my shift as long as I can until someone can come. Another thing that is hard is seeing some residents living in what I consider a poor quality of life. When they don't have any one come in for them, they cant move, their on a feeding tube, they have no way of expressing to you what they need or want, they are dependent on you for everything. It really makes me sad, even doing everything I can for them I always wonder what are they thinking if at all and I question my self would I want to be in this condition just to be living? Would I want my family members lay like this. Its very hard to think about.
ReplyDeleteI have also had some personal experience with death. The hardest was when I was in high school, my cousin (who I considered my sister cause I didn't have any siblings). She was killed instantly in a car crash. The person who hit her was an older male, slipping into a diabetic coma who woke up in the hospital fine a few days later not knowing what happened. I still feel a lot of blame and anger.
On friday I just learned a old friend of mine committed suicide. I lost my uncle from heart failure a few years ago. In high school I had a friend die from a pulmonary embolism. I don't remember how old I was but my younger cousin who was 2, was killed accidentally by his older brother who was 6, by playing with his parents gun and it went off. Right now my uncle has terminal cancer and he was given less than a year to live.
Every death I have experienced has been different. Every way I have dealt with it has been different as well. From my experience for me it has been harder losing someone unexpectedly, because when we have some idea it is coming we have resources to make them as comfortable as can be during the process
Cooper Hill, Middle school ed (social studies/language arts). I've had two very bad deaths in my life; my grandmother passed away two years ago, and this past summer, my best friend's mother passed away from breast cancer.I'm very excited to start this class because of the topic of death. It is a very under rated study that almost everyone considers, but never investigates deeper.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Morgan Cornwell. I am in this class to fulfill core requirements in order to graduate. Experiences I have had with death were not many until this past summer when my graduating class at Bishop Hartley High School lost 2 of its members. So it was a tragedy losing people who were so close to me in tragic accidents.
ReplyDeleteHello my name is Judy Allen. I’m taking the course for my gerontology degree. I’ve had plenty of experience with death. I’ve had pets (mostly cats) all my life and we live near a busy road so we’ve had several get hit by cars. I lost both my grandmothers when I was 10 two days apart and my teacher a few months after that. Recently we had to put a cat down because of medical issues and a while ago we had to put down our first and only dog. I’ve also worked in nursing homes since I was 16 so I’ve had several residents whom I’ve been very close to die suddenly or we were expecting it. That’s about it for now. Hope to have a fun year.
ReplyDelete