Insights:
-The fact that at any moment you could be diagnosed with any disease that would change your life is just breath taking to me. Its amazing that you could be plagued with a death sentence at any point in time of your life. In Beth's case this sad sadistic occurrence fell upon her family. I find it hard that Beth even had the courage and will power to share her feelings on her husbands cancer. What was going through my head as she shared such personal parts of her husbands problems was why? Why would she get in front of a class of almost 30 students and tell us the story of his last few months and how it effect her and the rest of her family? What could doing this possibly help her with? I have such a hard time discussing my own family losses in general with anyone.
-When my cousin Richard died, god bless him, but my family and myself was devastated and would never even think of talking to a group of high school students about the experience of us going through that as individuals. Beth's experience of sharing with us her stories gives me ideas of letting my feelings and thoughts and experiences out about my lost love ones. The reason being is she gives me courage in doing so because of her being able to share her own personal family tragedies. So maybe one day if I think about Beth's stories I to will decide to share my stories of my lost loved ones and not feel scared or not in the right state of mind to go through with it.
I agree with your post. I believe it is hard to recall the loss of your loved ones, let alone speak about it in front of people. I also agree that anyone who is wiling to share a life experience, especially as morbid as death deserves a round of applause, and is of course inspiring to myself.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I think you could have elaborated on is how exactly Beth gave you the courage to possibly speak about the passing of your loved ones. What kinds of things did she say that inspired you and really hit home with you?
I think the fact that Beth "gave you courage" to possibly be able to share your emotions and feelings one day about any loss you have experienced in your family is very significant. Beth seems to have inspired you to be more open about your feelings in the future. I think that is the answer to your question of why she would share sometihng so personal. By showing how courageous she is, she is influencing others. Maybe she is hoping that by opening up about such a private subject, she will inspire others to do the same.
ReplyDeleteI like how you went from saying you would never think of sharing something so personal to the opposite end of the spectrum. Even though it was not something you would initially imagine doing, you kept an open mind enough to think about why it might actually be something you would consider down the road.
I would love to hear more about how you got from point A to point B in this thought process. Did something she say bring out emotions in you to do so? It sounds like she must have been a very engaging speaker. Do you think it was also therapeutic for her to do this? The whole experience may have helped her cope better with such an unfortunate loss. I think you could have talked about the reasons you initailly thought of as to why you would not want to talk about the loss of a loved one, and after meeting Beth why these reasons may have changed.