My dad was recently hospitalized and is awaiting a form of open heart surgery at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto. Only a few months earlier, after learning material in this course, I addressed important questions to my family relating to their personal preferences when in the face of death. My family has always held relatively private attitudes towards death. When my grandmother passed away, each member of my family went to our separate rooms and dealt with our own emotions separately and never addressed the death with support from each other. Looking back, all our attitudes have all drastically changed as a result of my dad’s health issues; our family is now very supportive of each other and we tackle emotional setbacks as a team. I am very proud of the unifying attitudes towards coping with sickness and death now embedded in my family.
Growing up, I was always baffled why people were so deeply affected by death. I had never had an immediate family member or close friend pass away and I never understood people’s drastic reactions to death. To me, it seemed to be a natural process that everyone goes through. My feelings towards death have now become more tangible and are more focused on making sure that the dying individual is at peace. Everyone who knows a dying individual is affected by them in one way or another as it is an impactful event to their personal