HW 17 - First Thoughts on the Illness & Dying Unit

       I think I have already accepted death as inevitable.  The entirety of it is scary and unwelcoming.  When I was young, my parents had told me blatantly that my cousin died in the 9/11 plane crash.  I didn't know how to react but, one thing is for sure, I didn't cry or mourn.  Had I cried, would I have reached some level of enlightenment?  Had I mourned, would relatives at a dinner held years after his death  realize that his death had not made me break down?  As an avid television watcher, the role that which a family member plays when another dies is repetitive and plays out the same way and so, I had felt the way I had reacted was unusual.  I'm not sure what to make out of this day though, I remember evading what had happened by merely trying to forget.  Though this evasion had not done much to better my understanding of death.  It was night time and my family and I had just walked through glass doors into a vaguely familiar restaurant for a family get together.  I had forgotten about my cousins death by then and I'm ashamed to say so.  I had asked his mother where he was and mentioned his name and by no mistake, I felt the sharp sting of her slap.  His name was fresh in my mouth and I had no idea what I had done wrong at the time.  But, that changes nothing and what's in the past is in the past.  Extremely cliche but, these words made a weak attempt to explain how I feel right about now.
       After re-reading what I previously wrote out of habit, I had realized that I had not mentioned my cousin's actual name.  Does this directly correlate to what had happened the last time I spoke of his name?  Probably, given the situation, it's considerable.  About 2 years after this incident, my neighbor had committed suicide.  The memory of this day is vivid and the feeling of my heartache is slightly present.  I asked the police officer what happened with the eyes of a most innocent child and expectedly, he hesitantly responded.  The word suicide was still vague.  Then after, I hadn't spoken a word about the body I had seen on the white stretcher or his voice I had heard only hours earlier.  The void feeling of nothing that overwhelms me when someone dies makes me feel shameful of my lack of intense emotion or desire to cry.  This may be my way of coping with the idea of death seeing as the feeling of void was present in the two previous events that had occurred in my life.
       I'm not sure what happens after death.  I've given a good amount of thought thinking about it.  Death isn't something I am looking forward to because of the many scenarios of death popping up on the news channel, newspaper, and television series.  Through the media, I have seen people pitying the dead and pity disgusts me in many cases.  I don't think pity is a sufficient way to deal with death probably because I have an immense stubbornness when someone questions my potential and whole-heartedly pities me.  I digress but, death has always been put out to been horrendous, terribly sad, maybe even cartoonish.  After death, the ability to think is gone now that the brain is not functional and so I wonder what would be my last thoughts when I die?  Would my thoughts finish or be cut off by the end of my being on this terra?  Retiring to the events that had made an impact on my perspective of death, I am unsure as to why I chose to offer anecdotes to demonstrate how I approach the notion of death.  Replaying these events in my mind, now that I am older and considerably more knowledgeable, I don't think my understanding of death has become anymore clear but, instead has just become a blur that won't rub off on a pristine camera lens.  And it's terribly strange to me as to our ability to elaborate on the idea of death is unlimited in words and thoughts even though we have not yet experienced it.  But, somehow I feel that death is close at hand and fear is what drives me to avoid it.