Death

Chapter 16 was a tough chapter for me to read, because a little over a year ago, I lost my wonderful dad to one the the worst forms of cancer there is - pancreatic.  It was interesting to me how much this chapter reflected the emotions and the steps of the grief process that myself and my family have gone through and are still going through.  My personal belief is that we will all be reunited with our loved ones.  We might leave our bodies behind, but our souls will make the transition to a different plane (heaven).  This makes sense to me, since we are all made of energy and energy never dies, it just takes on a different form.  I do wonder if our loved ones and others can come back to visit us, whether as a ghost or another form of life.  I know that there's been a lot of research done on this subject and I would like to believe that there is someway to communicate with our loved ones in the afterlife, but it makes me wonder how and what kind of methods could be used to receive actual proof of this phenonomen.

I guess if I could talk to the authors of this text I would ask them why more isn't being done in our society to educate and discuss different death experiences and the methods of dealing with grief.  Why aren't there coping strategies that are acutually taught as part of a school curriculum starting at about the age of six? 

I learned from this chapter that the grief process isn't a step-by-step series of emotions where you proceed through each step in a certain order.  A person can actually go back and forth between certain emotions many times before their grieving process ends and sometimes it can take many years (if ever) to move on and rebuild their life without their loved one.  Now that I have this information it will help me help my mom through her grieving process as she mourns my dad.

Losing my dad was one of my greatest fears in life and unfortunately it came true and I've had to deal with it, a lot sooner than I ever thought I was going to have to - he was only 69 years old.  It was an awful disease that took his life prematurely.  However, he did get to be in his own home when he passed; hospice helped him with his pain management and maintaining his dignity.  I can vouch for hospice as being an extremely wonderful, compassionate organization that helped both my dad and our family in his final days.  His death was not a very peaceful one, but at least he was surrounded by my mom, sister, and myself as he passed to the other side, where he was free from suffering and finally at peace.

I think, if I had unlimited resources, I would research and investigate different mediums and their authenticity, and if I found any that seemed to be credible, I would try to use them to communicate with my dad.  What piqued my curiosity is, what did he see as he left this reality that we live in?  Was it a long tunnel with a bright light at the end, like I've heard and read about in near death experiences. or was it other family members and friends that had gone before him, ready to help him with the next part of his journey?  I don't know, none of us really do, we can speculate all we want, but until it's our turn, it will remain a mystery. 

Retirement

This week, I found the section on retirement interesting.  It's a time of life that can be difficult to define because it means so many different things to people, depending on your beliefs and attitude regarding it.  In general, retirement in the U.S., was the idea of working for a certain amount of time and then retiring around the age of 65.  However, that whole concept changed, due to the downturn of the economy in the early 1990s; people started postponing their retirements and staying in the workforce longer.  In my opinion, this isn't the only reason that people are working longer in this day and age.  I think a lot of people really enjoy their work, and due to advances in health care, are able  to continue working much longer then they used to.  I wish I could ask the authors of this text what they would predict the average age of retirement will be 25 years from now.  Will it be the norm to see 85 year olds still a part of the workforce?

Regardless of the age people retire, I love to see the ones that really take advantage of their "free time" and fill it up with all sorts of adventures and opportunities, which brings me to my grandma.  She retired in her mid-sixties (now she's 92), and started travelling all over the world.  When she went to Taiwan she rode an elephant, when she went to Morocco she rode a camel, and while she was in Australia she held a Koala bear and a wombat!  In her seventies she was still going on rollercoaster rides!  She learned Tai Chi, got a treadmill, and in her eighties she started lifting weights.  She even modeled at fashion shows for a store that sold "older women" attire.  She is very active in her community and church and volunteers all the time for different things, in fact when I try to plan something with her it's always "wait a minute, let me grab my calendar" because she's so busy!  I don't get to see her as often as I like because she lives in Oak Harbor, but when I do visit her, we love to have our little "happy hour", she'll put out some cheese and crackers and we'll have a couple of glasses of wine and talk about life.  She's positive, easygoing, kind, loving and every good thing you could say about a person.  She's amazing!!

Fortunately, my grandma, has been able to enjoy retirement without having to worry too much about her finances or her health.  However, for the ones that do struggle, after reading the article "As Good as it Gets", I wish our country was more like the Netherlands, where they respect and value their elders and take care of them. I think it would be interesting to do further research on different countries and find out what their policies are concerning retirement and how they treat their elderly people versus the U.S.