Death and Dying: Life's Greatest Lesson (Tuesdays with Morrie)

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Notable in his relation of this story is his avoidance of discussing death with his uncle, attempting to suppress the thoughts and feelings even as his uncle attempts to communicate his concerns about dying, “He...said...he wouldn't be around to see his kids into the next school year...I told him not to talk that way”(p 15). Not only this, but thereafter Mitch states that he put a premium on the time he felt he really had to live, though unfortunately this value of life came to be predominately represented in material accomplishments rather than spiritual ones. Along a similar theme, Morrie discusses his mother's illness which witnessed as a child. Morrie describes his mode of coping with his mother's illness as also being one of avoidance, evidenced by his pretending not to hear his mother calling for medicine as he played outside the house and how this was easier than confronting the reality, “In his mind he believed he could make the illness go away by ignoring it”(p 74). Later, after receiving the news of his mother's death and going through the grieving process, Morrie is frustrated by his father's forbidding discussion of the loss and so grieves privately through religion, attending services and saying a memorial prayer for her. Looking back on the deaths of his loved ones and that of a colleague, Morrie is able to learn from these experiences how to cope with his own death: by ensuring that there are no goodbyes left unsaid and that he is surrounded by those he loves. This inspires him to have a living funeral, rather than having it be an experience of mourning in which people say nice things that he never gets to hear, he wishes to be a celebration of his life and the relationships it has fostered.
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... Tuesdays with Morrie it is clear that Morrie's wife Charlotte is experiencing some caregiver role strain even with receiving some regular outside help. This strain is seen during a visit when Charlotte is seen to both “smile and fret at the same time” when seeing the food Mitch has brought and her preoccupation during the interaction: staring into space and turning to listen for something. Mitch ascribes these behaviors as being due to stress and likely lack of sleep (p101).

References
Ackley, B.J., & Ladwig, G.B. (2014). Nursing diagnosis handbook.
Albom, M. (1997). Tuesdays with Morrie. New York: Random House
Berman, A., Snyder, S., Kozier, B. &Erb, G. (2012). Kozier & Erb’s Fundamentals of nursing 9th ed.. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Gould, B. & Dyer, R. (2014). Pathophysiology for the Health Professions (5th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Saunders/Elsevier.

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