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Coping With Death Term Paper

Death Linda Wertheimer and Robert Siegel extensively interviewed Helen Payne, an 81-year-old woman dying of leukemia, and family members, regarding the process of coping with terminal illness in a loved one. They included observations from Payne's oncologist and hospice nurse as well. Their interview shows a wide range of logical and emotional responses exhibited by family members as Payne's illness progressed, and demonstrated just how complex our reaction to such illness can be.

Wertheimer and Siegel are presumably competent radio reporters. Their article was organized around open-ended questions they put to Helen Payne, one of her granddaughters, and medical experts. The result is a compelling narrative reflecting how families handle the complex emotions that occur when a loved one faces death. Family members demonstrated both logical and emotional responses to Payne's situation, although Payne herself accepted the doctor's diagnosis with poise and dignity. Since this article was not research, including medical experts balanced personal opinion with scientific fact. It would...

By use of their open-ended questions, they allowed the respondents to give full and detailed responses that give the reader a sense of who these people were. It was easy to understand the magnitude of this family's loss when Helen Payne eventually did die. Information was provided about the family in the authors' narratives, but they refrained from interpreting the Payne family's experience, which was appropriate for this type of interview.
In the interview, the interviewers elicited frank discussions from family members about how they responded. For instance, Glenda Crabbe, Payne's granddaughter, responded in both logical and illogical ways. While Payne herself accepted the fact that she was going to die even though she could not remember the name of…

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That anecdote in particular was moving to me because my grandmother did something similar when she was dying. I spent hours sitting by her bedside. One time she drifted off to sleep. When she awoke, she told me that she was ready to die. She had dreamed of heaven, and in the dream, when she got there, was told of her beloved cousin who had died many years before. She was told this cousin was anxiously waiting to see her again. This belief that death would rejoin her with loved ones gave her great comfort.

In doing more formal research on this topic, it would be interesting to see if it is typical for those in say, the eightieth or ninetieth decades of life to accept the prospect of impending death more easily than their family members can.

Wertheimer, Linda, and Siegel, Robert. "All Things Considered." National Public Radio, 1997.
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