Health & Illness & Feasting

As the first day of November hit, I was anxious for Thanksgiving Day to come. This festivity is a gathering that I always enjoyed, because the bringing together of my family was something that barely happens and this year it was severely needed. The typical social practices were my family all come together, nicely dressed with formal attire.  Getting situated at a long dinner table and feasting our hearts out on prepared food. Talking and reminiscing and giving out thanks. Anti-body social practice was stuffing our face until we weren’t able to consume anymore food, not caring about the result that food will or eventually have.

At 5am I heard the smell of food being cooked for the harvest. My mother made sure that everything on her part or the food she wanted to make was prepared.  I guess As long as theirs a large amount of good food than the day will end up being what’s expected. The enjoyment and existence of food is always incorporated in every holiday but on thanksgiving, food is much more the focus on the event. Everyone in my family came to say hello and reminisce, but they found themselves completely drawn to all that food that was placed on the dinner table. Home cooked meals mostly from my mother who usually does most of the cooking but my sister and others provided there share. “how’s the turkey", my brother asked. Gobble gobble, the turkey is the dish that symbolizes this festivity. So you know food is important because the turkey is a “must make”. Eating repeatedly occurred throughout the whole night until everyone gathered in the living room, tired and bloated from the huge supplements of their food. We never really engage in other common practices as football watching on the big screen. But we use food and recollecting memories as way to spend the day.

This holiday the remembrance of our ancestors or those who passed wasn’t didn’t occur. It was unusual to me because it’s something that always happens. Especially when it comes to my grandmother because she’s always been the heart of our family. Always bringing us closer. Not having an empty chair and not remembering that same seat that my sister in-law was situated in was the same one my grandmother always sat at. This kind of makes me feel like an asshole now that I think about it. But she would be happy that this holiday brought nothing but smiles and no fights. The consuming of food had everyone embracing each other and seated for most of the night. The lack of movement and consumption of a bunch of food all for the purpose to fill and delight someone’s taste buds. Brings about the unhealthiness of a day like thanksgiving. My family never really takes notice on the damage that we are provoking on ourselves because we still eat unhealthy everyday. But for thanksgiving no one truly cares. But one day this may bring out illness that isn’t uncommon in our family, so it wouldn’t come as a surprise.

Initial Thoughts on Illness and Dying

            Illness and death is something I’ve seen a lot of in my life. It’s sad to say but I seem to always hear something about one of my family members or somebody I know being sick, getting sick or sadly dying. The one memory I always draw back to when I think of my grandfather is one specific time of me visiting him in the hospital, and I hate that. The harsh smelly stench, the white sheets, the little TVs, the Jell-O, and the exaggerated happiness of the nurses. I remember it so clearly because his illness of parcinsin cut our memories together short. growing up I constantly use to visit my grandmother at the hospital  because she suffered from a stroke and high blood pressure which is something that’s hereditary in our family.  She lived with us as well during the time of her illness because we felt we could provide much more for her than a retirement home or hospital could. And we did. My grandmother was a wise and strong woman, passing not too long ago, she was 90 years old and she lived a long and great life. She said it herself, that she’s lived her life and bluntly stated that she was ready for the end. She was ready but me and my family definitely wasn’t. I’ve seen illness and death with my own eyes numerous times and it never seems to get old but still hurts.

            I haven’t been taught any particularly way to look at illness and dying. I’ve picked up on along the way that it’s something that just happens. You can shy away from illness if you take care of yourself and live a healthy lifestyle. Unless it’s an illness like high blood pressure that’s passed down. Learning from my experiences I’ve learned that death is something that comes across in everyone’s life sooner or later. So you must live your life to the fullest extent until you reach that day. Thiers some sort of linear life that everyone is suppose to live or will live.  Born, child years, youth years, college, career, marriage, have a family, get old and die. We live our whole lives to the same ending that isn’t a happy one, and that is death.

           

In our society we seem to always separate those who are ill from those who aren’t. People look at the elderly and those who are sick as weak individuals and look down on them. We out them in places where they suffer instead of get better. Though hospitals and retirement homes specialize in helping the sick, a place where the sick are isolated.  My mother hated the fact of putting my grand mother in a home that wasn’t ours, having her suffer miserably in a quiet room where no on actually cares but “does their job”. My mother felt putting my grandmother in a home or hospital meant sooner or later it would be time to say goodbye. She experienced that tragedy with her father and didn’t want history to repeat itself, but eventually it did. When someone dies it’s expected to give them a proper burial and a ceremony to celebrate that persons life and after life. All black attire, tissues, tears and utter silence is the usual feel of a funeral. Different cultures celebrate death and deal with it differently. Some want a casket in the ground with a stone engraved with their name, some want to be cremated and theirs some who want their ashes to be thrown away at sea.   

  It’s funny to see people shy away and hide from the truth. We put a wall up instead seeing the true meaning behind ones actions or what is actually happening. That that specific sickness, injury or death will impair you life in some type of way. Maybe you can’t play that sport that you once loved so much. Should it be hovered over and always thought about? What if the dead is forgotten? Is that bad? What do you or tell someone that is laying their sick? Maybe you should ask them how their day but your scared that you will receive a bitter answer. Maybe you should enlighten them with what’s been going on since they’ve been gone.  Sometimes nothing needs to be said; sometimes the realization of the moment is enough.