Preparing For Death Essay Research Paper When

Preparing For Death Essay, Research Paper

When I began researching for this paper, I thought I was writing a paper

about the affect of AIDS on a person’s life. I drove to Detroit and met

with my friend Jake, who was recently diagnosed with HIV. As I talked

to him, his courage and positive outlook startled me. He had gained an

amazing attitude about life fulfillment, love and appreciation. Jake had

become a totally new person. He now appreciated everything in his life,

found meaning in what he did and really lived every minute that he had.

This caused me to look at the way that I live my life. I realized that most

of the time in my life is spent waiting for time to pass. Learning about

this new insight into life caused me to change my topic for this paper. I

was now interested in discovering all that I could about how death can

affect life. My new question was: How can the awareness of death help

me to enhance the way that I live my life?

If I were to ever discover that I had a terminal illness, I always

pictured that it would consume my life. I always thought that I would

spend every moment depressed, waiting to die. But after I talked to Jake

for a while I discovered that facing death can enhance the way a person

lives their life in so many ways. Instead of living his average life, Jake

had transformed his life into a life of meaning. Each day he appreciates

all the things around him. When he goes to work he is working towards

his goal. He has made plans for travel, and many other things to look

forward to. He has accepted love into his heart and feels it like he never

thought possible. Just talking to Jake I was able to see and feel so much

different about him. He gave out so much positive energy it almost

scared me at first. I hate to say it, but at first I doubted him, and I

thought he was I denial about his illness and about death. I thought that

the only reason that he was saying these things was because he could not

bear to think about his deadly disease. But I realized that I could learn

so many wonderful things about life from this new perspective. And I

became interested in his happiness as I reflected on my nothingness.

I became very interested in the way Jake seemed to soak up

everything in life. He seemed to become a much deeper person. His

appreciation of art, music and poetry had flourished. I went to the

library and got two books by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, an expert on the

process of death and dying. these books focused on helping people to

live fuller lives until they die. They helped me greatly in my search for

the answer to my question.

“…When human beings have the courage to face their own

finiteness and come to grips with that deepest agony, questioning,

turmoil and pain- they emerge as new people. They begin to converse

with God, or the Source, or whatever you want to call it, and a new kind

of existence begins for them. These patients often become poets; they

become creative beyond all expectations, far beyond what their

educational backgrounds prepared them for. … The reason for all this

emerging creativity in patients is the fact that we all have many hidden

gifts within our own being that are all too frequently drowned in the

negative and materialistic struggles on which we spend so much of our

precious energy. Once we are able to get rid of our fears, once we have

the courage to change from negative rebellion to positive

nonconformism, once we have the faith in our own abilities to rise above

fear, shame, guilt and negativity – we emerge as much more creative and

much freer souls.”

In Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ book To Live until we say Goodbye, she

features a woman named Beth who is dying of cancer. Beth spent much

of her time writing poems and music in her diary. She allowed these

poems to be published after her death. One particular poem stuck in my

head.

“Death is staring too long into the burning sun and the relief of

entering a cool dark room.” I feel that this poem shows her courage to

look at death as a positive relief rather than a completely negative thing.

She is obviously at peace with herself and ready for her transition to

death.

A few weeks later Jake called to see how my paper was coming.

He told me that if there was one thing that he would want me to have in

my paper it would be the fact that his attitude about life doesn’t only

apply to people who are dying. He explained that all he can do now is

live every minute that he has. And that no one knows how much time

that they have in this world definitely so why not make each moment

mean something? He feels that each person should live their life the way

that they want it. He says that he wishes that he had started living like

this years ago. I felt that was worth putting in my paper.

Another view that

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