My Brother by Jamaica Kincaid Precis' Part 2

Precis- 2 Months would pass and my brother would only become more sick. The body that he use to have seemed to be just that, the body that he USE to have. His lips were extremely chapped and his body was very skinny. The body that he had before was very skinny but the way that he looks now isn't the same way. Before he seemed like a healthy person and the kind of skinny that he has now makes him see like he is very close to death. As he got worse and his body started to fall apart on him he died. I was told this by my husband, when he first started to tell me about my brothers death I thought it was someone in his family. When he told me it was my brother i felt relived knowing I would be able to handle death in my family easier than my husband.

Quotes- "His death was imminent and we were all anticipating it, including him, but we never gave any thought to the fact that this was true for all of us: our death was imminent, only we were not anticipating it...yet. (Page 92)

'When my husband woke me up, he said, "Sweetie, come, come, I have to talk to you. In the dark of the room I could see his face; that isn't really possible, to see something like a face in the dark of a room. (Page 99)

"Dalma just called, Devon died." And when he said "Devon died" I thought, Oh it's Devon who died, not one of his relatives, not someone of his, this is not someone he has to grieve for." (Page 99)

Thoughts-This book seems to be very raw and that makes it very true and I would guess if you lost someone close to you this could be very easy to relate to. The only thing that confuses me is the calm tone that Jamaica always has. You always hear about people crying when they are told about someone close to them dying but Jamaica faces everything that usually brings heartache around her with a calm head. He father also died but she doesn't seem to convey any of her feelings at the time and when she does those feelings are always described with calm words. She never seems to be mad or upset she is always expecting the worse so everything thats bad that happens to her is just expected.

Homework 21 part B

Chris,

There were a few grammatical/spelling errors in your post, but overall I felt like you got most of your ideas across well. Your last paragraph was thought-provoking, I would imagine that if you were in such late stages of cancer that you would know that you would die fairly soon. And really, when you are that sick just about all you can do is lie in a bed. He could barely eat and needed morphine, I doubt there was much he could have done differently Chris.
Your paragraph about the stigma that is associated with people who have AIDS was very relevant to our group right now, because in Jamaica Kincaid's book that is a very important theme. I think there are parallels to that social disassociation in nature, the sick and dying are shunned in many animal groups, and are usually culled from the herd. Maybe there's some base instinct to avoid a sick person that stems from a survivalist need to avoid getting sick yourself.

(Comment from Lucas London)

Hi Chris!
I think you tackled some really tough subject matter very gracefully. You made it clear that although you've never been in such a position, you can still understand the range of feelings someone experiences when someone close to them passes away. Your line "The pain of seeing someone almost helpless ... wheeled away by a celebrity guest doctor" really struck me, because it hits very close to home. As a teenager in America, I'm no stranger to the horrors of fatal illnesses; it's hard to watch TV at night without stumbling across at least one show romanticizing hospitals and sick people. It tends to make people desensitized, so that when they come into contact with real-life death experiences, they're shocked by the level of seriousness and loss.
I'd say you could improve your writing by getting a little passionate. You come off as a tad stiff, like you're concentrating more on using nice words and concise sentences then you are on conveying your ideas. Get passionate! Think about what you're saying, and let the reader in on your thought process. It's a lot more relatable that way. :)

Comment from Isabel Jenkins


chris,
I think you answered the question Andy posed thoughtfully, fully and in a very organized manner. I think this was pro aswell as a con. I think your post can be more interesting when you find an insight you are either knowledgable about or curious about and persue it to the best you can. I very much enjoyed the second to last paragraph and the last one I thought it was the most insightful and you could have definitly expanded on it. I think that you should try to think deeply on the topic itself rather than precisely following a rubric. The rubric helps when ur struggling no doubt, but if you want to improve your own insights and make it more interesting for myslef think deeply and try to find a passionate idea you have. when u love the idea the reader loves reading about it. hope my comment helps

Comment from John Tabor

Lucas,

I think you have a lot of good thoughts and I agree with a lot of what you are saying here. You do a good job of answering the questions but there is no third paragraph to talk strictly about your thoughts on what she said and not the thoughts that she relayed to us.It was also easy to see how your thoughts connected to the thoughts of the speaker and I like how it is easy to tell the difference. I know that when some people try to do this, it can be confusing to find the point of views that they have opposed to the points of view that someone else had. I think that this work could have more "beauty" if perhaps you have had a personal experience with someone dying and maybe talked about that. There is also the chance that you haven't had this experience and if not I also feel that knowing your internship is in a hospital, you could talk a little bit about that when you make the reference to the doctors in the hospitals. Only because I was there when Beth was talking and I know a lot about her views and the assignment says to talk about that but when addressing beauty I personally feel that it is easier to have some sort of natural beauty when you talk about something personal because everyone has a story and telling by the ability of your writing it would be interested to feel some of your personal views. That could also make it more passionate making it that much better.

(my comment to Lucas)

Hey John,
I like a lot of what you said and I think you got a good point across about what Beth was saying and you did a good job answering the questions that Andy presented. Also, when I know that you most likely had some of the feelings that Beth had and you mention that when you say, "Before my own father died I felt more distanced from him he wasn’t the same image of my father I had when I was younger". But even though this could just be something that may be to personal for you to want to talk about I feel like even though you compared your feelings to Beth you could go more into depth about the differences and the similarities of how you felt with how Beth felt. The question does ask you to compared both of these things and I think you do address this but for someone who has experienced this I thought maybe you could bring up something that you thought she might have felt that you felt. As for the beauty in the work and the insight, I feel that you also bring something up that is very smart about the norms changing, which is something that I didn't really think that much about when she said he was a "stay-at-home dad". Besides this, the one thing that I thought could have made your blog better was just going more into depth IF you feel comfortable with that about your experience because that would have brought out a lot more beauty in this assignment.

(my comment to John)

Hey Burt,

I think that the strongest paragraph you have in this was the second paragraph. In that short paragraph I think you stated something that not many people have stated in their blogs and it is one of the most key pieces to what was being said by Beth. You mentioned that we normally don't see people die. I think this was the beginning of a really good paragraph but you failed to make a follow up statement about this. I think your work could have been much better if you would have talked about this more or staying home helping someone more considering that you said it was something that jumped out to you immediately. Posing some questions and trying to dig deeper is something that I really encourage you to do for the remainder of the blog post. Also you seem to answer the questions pretty well but the questions do say compare and contrast the insights that you have and I would like to see how some of what you think. Then for the questions you do ask, I feel like some of these could have been questions that you tried to answer when you talk about other things in the beginning of the post. So what you overall need to focus on for later is expanding on your ideas because they will probably be good, maybe adding in something from personal experience and making sure you compare and contrast your thoughts. Doing this will completely answer the homework question.

(My comment to Jasper)

My Brother by Jamaica Kincaid Precis'

FIRST PRECISE

Precis- The affect of AIDS is extremely powerful in Antigua, how fast it is spread around, the amount of people that already have it, the lack of support to try and stop it, and the lack of medicine and doctors willing to treat people with it. So many people are contracting AIDS from not knowing enough or not listening to the advice given about the prevention of AIDS. My brother has been diagnosed with AIDS from the way that he looks to the way he acts and things he done have all changed. Having AIDS in Antigua, makes you close to death, people don't get treated when they have AIDS because it is seen as a waste. My brother has been hospitalized and might not be able to survive with the small amount of medical people addressing the point.

Thoughts-"He said that people who are not HIV=positive give up too soon on the people who are, but that he tried to keep everybody alive, because you never know when a cure might come along. He said that --you never knew when a cure might come along-- and I could not tell if, in that he as asserting native Antiguan foolishness or faith in science" (Page 35)

"Afterward two men asked him for a lift, and when they reached a certain part of town, a part of town where prostitutes live, they asked to be let out. Dr Ramsey asked them if they had condoms and they said no. He asked them if they had not listened to anything he had just told the, and they said to him yes, but they would rather die than leave the butter women alone." (Page 39)

"When I called Dr. Ramsey I asked him if he would meet me at the hospital and examine my brother and give us, his family, medical advice as to what we could do, what we could not do, what we could expect and, perhaps, when to expect it." (Page 32)

Thoughts- I have a hard time connecting to the ideas that are being brought up in this book. As for the way that the book is written I completely understand but that idea that someone with AIDS is almost forgotten about. Also the idea that people who know what AIDS is and have such a plentiful amount of AIDS still have people having unprotected sex. In the United States we have programs to teach kids about AIDS in the 6th and 7th grade, free condoms everywhere, and hospitals that make it their motto to never give up on people who have a disease such as AIDS. Apparently at this time in Antigua it was common for AIDS to be something that many people have but I would also guess if it was some sort of epidemic then many people would be more afraid of catching it there would be a high amount of medicine to make this easier to live with. Whereas in the United States people are taught at young ages about this there are still many people in Antigua (during the time of the book) where adults have to be educated.

Homework 21

Christopher R
1. Not being able to seek health because the lack of health insurance
2. (The sadness in her voice in different moments of the story)
3. Not being in denial but hoping for the best.
4. Difference in reaction from both children.
5. Husband’s body changed completely, unlike in movies.
6. Surrounding her husband with artwork that he had created
7. Introducing him with his artwork then his kids. Not being described by just a disease.
8. Being the one who wants to care for her sick husband 24/7 not having doctors do it for her.
9. Letting Evan be exposed to one of the worse times in his dad’s life.
10. Telling her husband to let go because his body would be much use to him.

Number Five: When people who don’t have direct experiences with someone dying, such as myself there’s some sort of confusion of what this would actually be like when it does happen. So what most people get their views from on they see people dying and handling this is the television. It’s almost as if the world of television and anyone who “resides” there can influence the way we live in “real life” and how we react to things that happen to us. She mentioned that while he was in the worse stages of his cancer, he didn’t look the same and all the bones in his body were showing. She also mentioned that the entire process was long and heart-wrenching. I’ve never had anyone close to me die but watching someone die who had be one of the closest people to you couldn’t possibly compare to a two part episode of family matters. The pain of seeing someone almost helpless in the position where they couldn’t talk anymore has to be a far more devastating than having to wait to the next to watch one of your favorite characters get wheeled away by a celebrity guest doctor. Personally I haven’t experienced any death as close as to losing a husband; I’ve never lost an immediate family member. My view of how losing someone closes to me can’t even be compared to someone who has gone through, so even if I try to think of how it will be its most likely nowhere nears the pain people must feel.

Number Seven: After people get sick the only thing they can be defined by is there illness. It starts to become there personality. Instantly someone who has AIDS is now recognized by this because of the large part of the day that has to be dedicated to keeping diseases under control. After the disease starts to change a person’s body, now this person is also physically associated with the disease. Why the disease starts to infect your body it also infects the way people see and treat you. By introducing someone who is sick to another person by the work that they have, it creates the idea that this person is more than the disease because they did do something BEFORE they became sick and they will be something after everything is said and done. Personally if I was being introduced to someone while I was in one of the worse states in my life, I wouldn’t be want to be viewed by my lowest moment, just like Beth tried to do I would want to be loved for the things I have done, the people I have help, and anything I have helped created. The day you die is the lowest moment that a person is viewed (or at least seconds before you die). If everyone went around thinking about the worse times someone had there wouldn’t be any reason for accomplishing anything. All the hard work done in life would be lost once death came, instead of preserved for the people close to you.


The biggest Idea that Beth’s presentation sparked was, referring to the last ten days of her husband’s life as, “The last ten days”. This really got to me because when someone is sick they may know they are going to die but there is no expiration date. So the people who succeed this person and use terms like “the last ten days gives me a weird feeling. Even though these were the last ten days I feel like if Beth’s husband knew that he only had ten more days he would have tried to use them differently. So referring to this as the last ten days just seems like a inaccurate way of referring to this.

Homework 19

Christopher R
At first I asked my mother what she thought about death and dying as well as illness. The first thing so she got a piece of paper and start to write down what she thought. She wrote “Death is a very sad moment in our lives. We all have to go through it and we have to grow up with our brothers and sisters and uncles, and cousins and mothers, and fathers but they all have to die”. So I told her that with all the people in our family that died there has to be more to her feelings about the topic. I would think that someone who has had so many deaths so close together that there would be more emotion to it then something that could go into a dictionary. So after starting over a couple of times I started to extract some of the feelings I think she had been holding back and she even started to tear up in some of the conversation we were having.

Two of her best friend’s one of my godmothers died. Not recently but both of them were really close to my mother and she was always there with both of them while they were close to death. One of them named, Denise was my mother’s childhood best friend. She became ill from cancer. She had cancer in her breast and progressingly became sicker after being diagnosed with this. Her breast was removed and it seemed like things were starting to get better because the cancer had started to go away. But my mother recalls seeing her at her worse where she had to go to her friend’s house and do all of her cooking and all of her laundry. Even though she knew when someone has a sickness like this even though she can hope and pray that she gets better or there is a cure you have to know this person will most likely die. After her breast was removed, the cancer came back in Denise’s lung and it started to spread to her brain. This made Denise turn blind and things started to seem worse from here until her sight came back. While she was saying this to me I thought about how the emotional rollercoaster of someone being sick could really affect the loved ones of this person. Then the cancer started getting worse and Denise died. This was my mother’s best friend; I could only imagine how much sleep someone could lose from this. Then another one of my mother’s friends died.

I would imagine that a broken heart could only be mended when the thing that broke their heart was forgotten. If this was true I could only imagine what kind of condition my mother is in. Within the next 5 years, another one of my mother’s friends passed away. In the conversation she said, “When someone is sick and they die it’s not as hard because you have time to come to the conclusion that this person is going to die, when the person just dies out of nowhere it really hurts”. Her best friend Barbara also died and no one knew where she was for 2 days until she was found dead at the bottom of the basement stairs. This constant loss that my mother was feeling really started to build up when he aunt died, her brother died, her mother was sick, her sister was sick, and her other sister was diagnosed with cancer. “One person can only take so much pain” , when she said this it makes people think about how hard living is because you have to let go to the ones you love most. When all of this happens at the same time it makes it even worse because you’re letting go to everyone you love at once.

My mother and her mother and most likely many generations before them believe in Christianity and she brought up the idea of seeing someone who had been alive to welcome you into heaven. Although I believe there is a God I don’t know exactly what part of Christianity I believe in. So I guess the teachings of religion changes with me. I was baptized but I don’t know a lot about my religion. My mother brought up this prophet like idea that her aunt presented to her before she died. Her aunt predicted what would happen. Words from my mom: “She told her daughter that she was going to be buried between one and two because she wanted people told able to get there, and she told everyone it was going to rain, but when we left our house it was bright and clear outside. After the pastor preached her funeral, there was a big dark cloud hanging over the church. Everyone went outside to bury her body, when everyone was outside and the pastor commenced her body back to the earth, I was standing there talking. There was a strong wind and everyone felt it because it was a cold wind so people said ‘that was Aunt Lucille saying goodbye for the last time’. Then while we were eating it started to pour hard for 15 minutes. Everyone had known about the prediction about it raining and believed it was a prophet like statement.”

In regards to the people who raised her, “I guess you can say, they are both very religious they were brought up very religious. They believe everyone meets their maker, and when death comes they accept it. We have to accept it. You don’t try to question why, but we were brought up to not question why. Everyone has to die because of the second judgment day and that’s what I was taught.” I think my mother’s family taught her a lot about what she believes now a lot of people where she lived had the same beliefs. Me, being someone who lives in New York I got a more multicultural view on death and illness. Even though I’m with my family most of the time when things like this do come up I get a better and wider perspective on what people think.


I also really like the line "death ain't nothing but birth in reverse" I don't agree with it but I like the idea of it.

Homework 18 Illness and Dying

Christopher R
1A

On Thanksgiving, all that we know to be true about food, in terms of how much of it should we eat and what kinds of food are better to eat then others are disregarded. The vegetables that are prepared take a back seat to the turkey, ham, stuffing, macaroni and cheese and all other foods. This could be seen something “anti-body” because after eating this food you have to sit down or go to sleep. While most people eat until they are no longer hungry on Thanksgiving you eat until you are no longer able to function. The more plates of food consumed the more effective the holiday was used. It’s the one excuse to eat as much as possible and not get judged or have to think about the diet you were recently on. A “body-centered” view that our culture has is eat a balanced meal. This way you won’t get obese and look unappealing to everyone.

At the Thanksgiving table were I was only one person decided to keep this idea in mind. The only thing she ate was a piece of ham, some cabbage, and small piece of turkey. My uncle however did the opposite and ate, about 3 servings of macaroni and cheese, 3 servings of turkey, 2 servings of ham, 2 servings of stuffing, 1 slice of red velvet cake, 1 slice of cheese cake, 1 slice of strawberry cake, and 1 slice of pumpkin pie. According to him dieting is only for people who are inactive and as long as he goes around the block a couple of times he’ll be okay, eating this much food was not a problem for him. I would classify this as an “anti-body” thing considering his torso resembled Homer Simpson’s and it almost looked as if he was forcing himself to eat this much. Compared to him everyone else’s food choice seemed “body-centered” stopping after one plate but going back every now and then picking up an extra serving of one or to things and trying to reframe from eating more pie.

The food pleasure dominated the event seeing as that was the main focus of the conversation even after the food was made and could no longer be edited. With each new food eaten, someone would ask if it was as good as last year or compared to someone else. Whenever one person thought that one dish was the best another one of my family members would ask “Is it as good as the way I make it?” And my uncle would say “This food is real good, if I go to someone’s house and they make food that I don’t like I would definitely tell them because If I don’t they won’t know how to make it.” Then there was my 89 year old grandmother who doesn’t talk a lot who spoke after done eating and said “This food was real good. It taste like the food I used to make, I taught all of you how to cook real good”. Instead of watching football my family likes to eat food then talk about the food and who cooks it best. Instead of debating a controversial call in a game of “pig-skin” my family debates the controversial call of who makes the best ham.

The background elements related to illness and dying is probably shown through the people in my family, asthma and diabetes is something that has been in my family for a long time. Also many people in my family were overweight but the person who has been the most sick was my grandmother. She was in the hospital because she was having heart problems in 2007. No one talks about that anymore but because she’s so old when my mother was giving her early Christmas presents my aunt said, “Christmas isn’t promised to her”. That kind of killed the mood but it also made everyone enjoy her presence much more than before the statement.

Thought on illness and Dying

Christopher R 11/23/10
1A
Illness and Dying Thoughts
I think someone dying is something people are always overreacting to. One of the only things that is promised in this world is the day you will die. I think what really makes people afraid does not know when it is going to happen and because of this you can’t say goodbye to anyone. Also in the United States many people are afraid that the way they will be killed is by homicide because on the news there are always cases about people being murdered. If you think that your last minutes on earth will be the most physically is what scares people the most. However I think that knowing you’re going to die makes what you do on earth a lot more meaningful and depending on the different views a person has such as religion, dying could be a good thing.

A lot of people in the world believe in Christianity and in the Christian religion when someone dies they might go to hell depending on the sins that they have committed on earth. Others who are faithful to God and follow by the religion go to heaven. However I’ve never met one person to come back from being dead and say exactly what happens and because of what people am told dying is something to fear. It’s seen as a point of no return, there is no way to be with the people who you loved on earth. If dying is really a place where you have to be by yourself not able to see anyone you love or know it becomes something people want to avoid. I think when someone gets sick and is near death you start to feel for them more because while you are able to stay on the earth with friends and family they have to ‘’die and go off to near return’’.

What I have been taught about death, is when someone dies you have a funeral to remember all of the things that person did on earth and it’s a time for the friends and family to come together to reminisce. A lot of people tend to cry at funerals again because this person will never return to them but I see a funeral as a celebration. It isn’t a joyous celebration but it’s a time to take a step back from reality and think about the person and celebrate the life that they lived opposed to the live that they are no longer going to be living. I think what I’ve been taught about death is probably the norm for people who live in the United States, such as flowers at the funeral, wearing all black to show that you are mourning someone and a casket that is going to be the final resting bed. But on to Illness, I don’t think that illness is too far from dying. Being dead however is something different but many people who are ill have a chance of dying. When someone is ill people tend to classify them in the same category as someone who is dying.

When you are dying people picture the person to be unable to help themself. They are in a state where that person’s body is not at one hundred percent and they are usually seen as weak, and hopeless. This is also how people who are ill are depicted. It’s almost like illness is a step before dying. If you become progressingly ill than your considered dying.

I don’t know what would be a way of dealing with sickness and dying. The ways that are shown in the media are usually the ways that people tend to handle this in real life. If someone is sick or dying, usually they are in a hospital or have someone taking care of them, and when they die they have a funeral or they are cremated.