Death, Dying, and Bereavement: Reflection Essay

Terminal illness, end of life issue.

While dying is part of human life that surrounds each person, some encounters with death are more influential than others. My mother’s passing was an experience that impacted my view of life and end of life care the most. She died before her 60th birthday – her terminal illness was discovered very late, and she passed away less than a year after receiving the diagnosis. Such a rapid change in my life left a mark on my memory and reshaped my view of life and death.

It was difficult for me to come to terms with her death – the period between the diagnosis and her passing was too short. I was in denial for a long time and had trouble accepting what had happened. Looking back at this time, I see how the end of life is not always expected, and why the children of terminally ill loved ones require the attention of medical professionals as well.

End of life care for my mother took a toll on me, and I had to reevaluate my aspirations to see whether I treated life as an endless path. Now, I reflect on the feelings I had in order to remind myself that the end of life cannot be fully preplanned and that each case is unique in its own way. Moreover, I try to remember that one’s existence is finite. In some cases, the best solution is to provide as much comfort to someone and make sure they are making choices to the best of their ability and knowledge to have a happy and dignified time.

I also considered how my mother might have felt at the moment of diagnosis and during her last year. It is incredibly challenging for one to understand what knowing that you will die soon means. Such clarity is not always desired, but I believe that it is vital for people to know about their current condition because it affects their decision-making in healthcare and life, in general. Death is a part of each human’s life, but every step toward it does not feel final because it can come at any moment.

Knowing one’s diagnosis changes the way people and their loved ones think. Although I can only imagine what my mother felt, I understand what the families of terminally ill persons are going through.

If I were diagnosed with a terminal illness and were given a prognosis of six months or less to live, I would try to accept it in good faith before making decisions. Death is inevitable, but it is impossible to be fully prepared for it, even when you think that you are. So, I would look into myself to search for peace with this news in order to take advantage of the time that I have left.

I would feel sad because I would not see my loved ones and miss them dearly. Thus, my priorities for what should be done would change. I would try to see my family and friends as much as I could and spend time with them, making memories for them and myself. I would like to leave some mementoes behind and focus on the good times that we would have together. Planning for several months ahead is difficult when the exact date of death is unknown, so I would do my best to make the most of each day.

However, it is also vital to think about one’s inner comfort and peace. Coming to terms with my passing would be critical to me – it provides some type of closure and allows me to let go of worries related to everyday life. People may cover their fear of dying with activities and concentration on planning and socialization. In doing so, they may overlook their own satisfaction with life, denying themselves a chance to reflect. As such, I would spend some time searching for some last unanswered questions and unachieved goals that could be completed in the short span of time that I would have.

Finally, I would concentrate on my present and my loved ones’ future. I always strive to remember that life is endless in a way that it continues for other people. Although I will eventually die, some of my friends and my family members will continue living long after I am gone, facing problems and challenges that are inherent to humanity.

Thus, I would try to make plans to alleviate some of these issues. Most importantly, I would organize the provision for my child to finance the education – one of the most necessary, but expensive, parts of one’s coming to adulthood. If possible, I would review our housing options, savings, family and friends support network, and address other household and healthcare concerns.

Doctors and nurses in end-of-life care carry a significant burden in working with patients and families dealing with ethical and moral dilemmas. Some of these issues are also regulated legally, although the lines of what is legal or not are much less clear than in other cases. For me, one of the moral dilemmas that I had struggled with was the patients’ and relatives’ differing views on treatment planning. In some situations, the client’s family members may not pursue the same goals as the person under care. These aims can be guided by religious or personal views on health and death. Others can be motivated by financial problems, strained relationships, emotional health, and a multitude of other reasons.

For example, in a hospital, a family may not want the patient to know the diagnosis as it could scare or sadden them. In this scenario, I turn to the some of the medical principles as the basis for my value system. I would highlight the importance of fidelity – people have the right to known about their prognosis and diagnosis (Karnik & Kanekar, 2016). I think that truthfulness is a necessary part of end-of-life care and support, even though telling someone their diagnosis is difficult.

In some situations, children want to keep their parent alive as long as possible and request all possible procedures, while the client denies care and seeks comfort to spend the last days with dignity. Here, the principle of autonomy would guide my practice – people reserve the right to make decisions to the extent of their capacity (De Panfilis et al., 2019).

Moreover, it is vital to remember that rigorous treatment does not equal beneficence in all scenarios. I try to approach each case individually and acknowledge that every person has the right to control a part of their destiny through healthcare or outreach for support, and the duty of caring professionals is to inform our clients of all the choices they can make and what outcomes they can expect. In the end, medical science advances continuously, but death remains an unchanging aspect that requires person-centered thinking.

De Panfilis, L., Di Leo, S., Peruselli, C., Ghirotto, L., & Tanzi, S. (2019). “I go into crisis when…”: Ethics of care and moral dilemmas in palliative care. BMC Palliative Care , 18 (70), 1-8. Web.

Karnik, S., & Kanekar, A. (2016). Ethical issues surrounding end-of-life care: A narrative review . Healthcare, 4 (24), 1-6. Web.

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Mai-Ly Nguyen Steers Ph.D.

What My Friend’s Death Taught Me About Life

Personal perspective: my grief led to insights i had never considered..

Posted August 24, 2023 | Reviewed by Ray Parker

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Courtesy of Mai-Ly Nguyen Steers

September 1 will mark the first anniversary of my dear friend Amelia Coffman’s death. I am commemorating this bittersweet occasion by reflecting on what her death has taught me about life.

In telling her story, I hope to honor the lasting impact she made on me and so many others during her relatively short life.

Amelia and I first met in grad school when we were both going for our Ph.D.s. She was the kind of friend you could tell anything to because she made you feel truly seen, validated, and connected. She was also uncensored when it came to revealing aspects of herself. She wore her tender heart unapologetically on her sleeve. In an age rife with superficial politeness, our conversations felt refreshingly real, rejuvenating, completely accepting, and thoroughly authentic.

In her early 20s, Amelia faced a lot of emotional pain and self-loathing . She was an aspiring professional ballerina who developed a severe eating disorder . Because of her perfectionistic tendencies, she was plagued by her perception that she would never be good enough.

After a lot of therapy , soul-searching, self-reflection, and healing, she fully recovered and developed a passion for taking what she learned to help others. In graduate school, she became empowered not only to study eating disorder resilience and recovery but also to become a motivational speaker and an advocate for those suffering in silence from eating disorders. It was also during this time in her life that she found love. After having faced so much adversity early on, she seemed ecstatic to have found her true calling and was blissfully happy in her personal life.

Then, she started experiencing a series of major health and personal setbacks. She was perplexed when her body began to reject everything. She went in and out of hospitals for years with more questions than answers. Her disease was often misdiagnosed as a side effect of her eating disorder. EpiPens, feeding tubes, IVs, doctors, nurses, and debilitating pain became a way of life.

At one point, she went through intensive rehabilitation after losing her ability to walk. She was eventually diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease—eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA)—which inflames small blood vessels and can cause severe organ or tissue damage; this disease in combination with a tragic flood of her apartment nearly took everything from her.

In May of last year, she called to inform me she was ceasing all life-sustaining treatments. Although her body was broken, her spirit was unbreakable. She no longer wanted to be chained to a hospital bed. She was going to dare to live, even if it killed her. She was at complete and utter peace with her decision.

According to the hedonic adaptation theory 1 , people typically return to their baseline levels of happiness following tremendously positive or negative life events. In Amelia’s case, she walked the fine line of doubling down on optimism and pragmatism at the same time. There were moments before her next relapse when she felt so hopeful about her future.

Source: Courtesy of Amelia Coffman

She packed up all her earthly possessions and hit the road. With only her dog Lulu as her companion, she drove to national parks and lived out of her car. She expressed the awe of a child at the simple pleasures of being surrounded by nature. She loved the serenity, and it healed her soul if not her body.

She spoke of the beautiful sunsets, the gurgling of brooks, the freshness of the air, and the rustling of leaves when a moose came by. She never dwelled on the fact that her disease had ravaged her body and robbed her of her finances, and simply, more time.

Amelia went into palliative care towards the end of summer of last year and passed away peacefully in a small cabin overlooking the Rocky Mountains—just a few days after her 39th birthday. In the face of death, she taught me so many important lessons about life.

how death changed my life essay

Life Lessons

First and foremost, she taught me to not be afraid to live. Life is too short to be handcuffed to unhappiness. She was fiercely intentional, deliberate, and mindful about living out her last days on her own terms—a lone, wounded warrior in the untamed wilderness.

Conversely, Amelia taught me not to fear mortality. It was not that she had resigned herself to death but rather she would often recant one of her favorite quotes from the series, New Amsterdam , “The only way to beat death…is life.” She did not regret a single sunset or mountain.

She also taught me to ask for what I want and need from people, especially during difficult times when people are unsure of what to do. The day she entered hospice, she requested her friends and family flood her room with colorful flowers, so she could focus on the brightness while she was alive, rather than reserve them for her death.

She choreographed her "Celebration of Life" to a tee, choosing the church, the pastor, the music, and the booths to display her art so that those left behind would not be left guessing how best to pay tribute to her.

Finally, she taught me it is not only important but absolutely necessary to grieve a great loss. Grief is the natural consequence of having loved someone or something fervently and with your whole heart; in truth, this type of unfettered love is the only thing that makes life worth living. In one of her last Instagram posts, she featured the following quote from writer Martín Pretchel, “Grief is praise because it is the natural way love honors what it misses” 2 —overlaying a picture she took of the Royal Gorge in Colorado.

In her final days, she naturally questioned whether her life had meaning. She posted a pensive, melancholic poem to YouTube and wrote on her website that depending on who you asked, she was either a “complete failure or one of the most inspirational and resilient people you’ll ever meet."

To me, she was without question the latter. Witnessing her approach to death was a magnificent, exquisite, gut-wrenching, raw, and completely life-altering experience for me. I am so honored she chose to take me along on a small part of her journey. As for her legacy? I know that I, and so many others, whose lives she touched, will carry her honest, audacious, beautiful, and resilient spirit in their hearts forever.

1. Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., & Scollon, C. N. (2006). Beyond the hedonic treadmill: Revising the adaptation theory of well-being. American Psychologist , 61 (4), 305–314. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/10.1037/0003-066X.61.4.305

2. Prechtel, M. (2015). The smell of rain on dust: Grief and praise . North Atlantic Books.

Mai-Ly Nguyen Steers Ph.D.

Mai-Ly Nguyen Steers, Ph.D. , is an applied social psychologist and an assistant professor at Duquesne University in the School of Nursing.

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How My Friend's Sudden Death Changed My Life

how death changed my life essay

“So this is death. This is it,” I thought to myself as I stood over my friend’s coffin as it lowered into his grave. The last time I saw him we were at a wine tasting, and now, at just 30 years old, he had flickered out abruptly like a lightbulb.

It was 7:47 a.m., a week before the funeral, when my aunt sent me the text: “Brendan just died.” As soon as the unexpected message flashed on my phone, it felt as though the walls in my room violently rotated around me. His sudden death punched my soul in the stomach, and its blow shoved me into another dimension. I was in shock. “How could this happen?” I thought over and over to myself. It turns out I’ll never know. His death could have resulted from a brain aneurism, or a possible heart malfunction. No one is really sure, not even doctors.

Denial was my only comfort — until I saw the body. Once I saw Brendan in the preserved flesh, I knew it was real: my friend was dead .

Just a few months before, we were splashing around a beach in Sao Paulo, Brazil, laughing. Brendan was my aunt’s friend, and he was visiting the country for the first time too. I spent 10 full, internet-less days with him — anyone who's been without wifi for that long knows what a bonding catalyst the experience can be. Even before our digital isolation, we instantly clicked. When we met at the airport it was like reincarnated souls joining in an Indian myth. He must have been my best friend in a past-life, I'm sure of it.

how death changed my life essay

After processing Brendan's passing, I was changed forever. You simply cannot undo death, but it is from death that I learned to live my life . Here are some of the ways Brendan’s sudden death changed how I seize my days.

I Now Realize You Can't Take Your Money With You

Society trains us to run around like Mario trying to collect money. I too fell victim to this mindset, but Brendan was different; he had compassion in his eyes where others had dollar signs. He remembered to be human in a world of machines, taking time out of his day to really try to understand people.

From his passing, I‘ve learned that companies may exist for centuries, but time with people is limited. As a result, I’ve adjusted my mindset, and spend less time worried about my income, and more time treasuring time with family and friends. You can't take your money with you, and all that remains are memories of your life's impact.

I Try To Choose My Words Like They Could Be My Last

Death taught me to watch what I say to others. I used to end conversations with harsh words when someone close to me pissed me off. Now, I always make sure to tell the person I’m fighting with that I love them, no matter how angry I am. After Brendan’s death, I even contacted one of my exes and thanked him for always being there for me, because you just never know what your last conversation with someone will be.

Now, no matter how upset I am at that moment in time, I try to end every conversation on a positive note, because that could be the last time someone hears my voice. It sounds dark, but it's helped me be a kinder person to remember that every impression could be my last.

I'm No Longer Afraid To Love Hard

Brendan must have had a heart transplant with a phoenix, the way he healed himself from past heartbreaks and always let new love in. Before his death, I was very hesitant to let people into my life after getting hurt. But after he left this Earth, I decided to love again, in his honor.

I learned that you shouldn’t be afraid to give your heart again, because it is one of the most beautiful experiences you can let yourself have. We only go round this spinning globe once, so it’s important to make sure that round counts, and is shared with someone worthwhile. Now, I want to make full use of my heart until the day it stops beating, even if that means getting it cut open at times. I’m still lucky enough to be here and feel, even if that perception is pain.

I Now Strive To Be The Kind Of Person People Would Miss

I have never seen more people at a wake and funeral than at Brendan’s. Everyone was in tears, and all you could hear were hard sobs and sniffles throughout the wake. It was an orchestra of tears and mucus. There were so many people present that, I kid you not, two car accidents happened. It was more than apparent that Brendan had left his mark on a throng of people during his short life. A living, breathing angel with not a bone of malice in his body, he placed focus on what is important in life: forming relationships, and being kind to others.

Before his death, I used to take certain relationships for granted, but now I make sure to foster my connections with everyone I choose to let into my life. I want as many people at my funeral as Brendan had — not for show, but to know that I touched that many souls while alive.

Carpe Diem Is No Longer Some Cute Latin Phrase To Me

how death changed my life essay

It’s not until someone close to you dies that you truly realize how short and unpredictable life really is. When Brendan departed this world, he had just clocked out of work. Who knew that he would clock out for good only a few minutes later?

After his passing, I've found it useful to think about death is like this: When we are born we are given an invisible, wild animal to keep us company. Every day, this imaginary creature walks alongside us, until one day, the creature snaps and decides to take us down. This beast comes to life in the form of brain aneurisms, car accidents, and the like. In this way, death is always near us, and we never know when our last day will come, but for my friend Brendan it was too soon.

His short life was a reminder to stress less about the future, and carpe each and every diem , (and noctem ). In the end, none of us knows when our last breath will be. All we can do is keep working towards moments that take our breath away.

how death changed my life essay

‘A Near-Death Experienced Change My Entire Outlook On Life’

Confronting her mortality helped writer, outdoor enthusiast, and film-set horse wrangler Maggie Slepian feel joy more easily.

think about death more often illustration

Drowning is an agonizing way to go. Not that it’s physically painful; more that the minutes drag on and on and on. While trapped upside down in an unfamiliar kayak, coursing down a rapidly flowing, icy river, I watched the last grains of sand run through my hourglass.

Why did I say yes to this? I thought. I’m sorry for my family and friends. Who will tell my parents? I am scared. I wish I hadn’t come out here. Then, in my last few moments of consciousness, I forced myself to stop the onslaught of sadness. If I had only seconds to live, I didn’t want to spend them regretting my final choices. That’s the last thought I remember.

When I came to, I heard the roar of water before I opened my eyes. I blinked droplets from my eyelashes and saw the blue spring sky studded with fast-moving clouds. I felt a pressure on my chest. It was my partner’s arm squeezing my ribs as he kicked us toward shore. My knees buckled as I sank into the mud, trying to comprehend what had—and hadn’t—just happened.

For someone continually seeking adrenaline rushes, my own mortality was something I’d adamantly refused to acknowledge. The finality was haunting. But on the river that day, I was forced to face it.

The funny thing is, confronting your own death can actually increase your happiness, per a study from the University of Kentucky.

Did my second chance mean I was destined to do great things? While I don’t know that answer yet, almost dying did make me stop taking life for granted. The first time it rained after the accident, I was grateful to witness the storm. When it came time to mow my lawn, a chore I resented, I was happy for the opportunity to pull the mower from the garage. When switching jobs, I looked for experiences that felt worthwhile instead of what looked best on a résumé. I was continuously just happy to be here.

To be clear, you don’t need to seek out a drastic experience to uncover an awe for life.

A good start is considering the reality of death. Maybe you think of it occasionally during meditation, reflecting on what it might feel like. If you’re unnerved, lean into it. Use the thoughts to push yourself toward something you’re putting off, says Easter.

When I think about the day I almost died, I am filled with a surge of gratitude for having experienced life’s fragility. I feel less of a frantic desire to take risks the way I did that day and to chase forever-receding finish lines. I’d like to think I wouldn’t spend my last moments in regret anymore. I’m content.

I didn’t discover the meaning of life, and I still don’t know what I’m “supposed” to be doing, but the simple fact that I wake up each day? That’s something to be excited about.

This article appears in the April 2022 issue of Women’s Health.

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Death — Death of a Loved One as a Life-Changing Moment

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Death of a Loved One as a Life-changing Moment

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Published: Aug 4, 2023

Words: 520 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Experiencing the Death of a Loved One

The loss of my loved grandmother.

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Health And Wellness

The Anniversary Of My Death

A change in perspective helped me join the living again..

By Mindi Boston Written on Mar 17, 2024

Woman in hospital bed transitioning to years at home depressed

In July 2014, I awoke with a start and found myself staring out a small window at a jumbled sky. The portal must have measured nine inches square, but with the way it jumped around, I couldn’t be sure. The day outside was hot. Inside, it must have topped 115 degrees. I had trouble breathing and I was bathed in sweat. My two kids were in class — one in college, one still in high school. My husband could have been at work, but I found out later that he was racing toward the hospital behind me.

I was inside an ambulance, fighting for my life. I had just turned thirty-eight.

For seven days, reality and nightmares swirled in an indistinguishable blur. I would awake, eyes blurry and throat dry, panic in my muddy thoughts. A quick poke in the crook of my arm and liquid sleep would carry me away. Eventually, I was coherent long enough for a stranger to explain that I had suffered a catastrophic injury post-surgery and was extremely septic. My husband gently elucidated, filling in the blanks that shock had erased from my memory.

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Most people who survive near-death experiences describe a new lease on life. They want to do, taste, go, and be everything they might have missed. That was not my survival experience. Forty-eight hours after I arrived at the hospital, I woke up a different person. The first time I tried to get out of bed, I discovered an open gaping wound in my middle. It measured roughly seven inches across and four inches deep. My guts, clearly visible, looked like raw marbled steak. A wound vac sucked toxins from my body for the first week, and several additional tubes remained for another couple of weeks. My body took several months and a lot of doctor visits to recover; my mind never did.

A few months before that day in the ambulance, I had been at an all-time high. My kids were successful students, I had a great job and had just married the love of my life. I had so many plans I was sure would come true. Just shy of sixty days later, my mother, new husband, and teen daughter took turns bathing and toileting me. Each traumatic set point came with the realization that life, as I knew it, was over.

This is where my path diverges from the inspiring one I hear so often in support groups.

“Oh, my trauma taught me to live like I was dying.”

“When I woke up, I knew I’d been given a second chance.”

“I’ll never take a single day for granted ever again.”

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While others took their near-death experiences as a catalyst to live joyfully, I became aware that there are far worse things than death — like surviving. I saw the risk in everything around me and was terrified of every germ and shadow. I let the fear, anger, and shame take over.

One of the phrases I heard repeatedly throughout recovery was to accept the “new normal.” To this day, those words make me cringe. I wanted my old normal and it took me years to accept it was gone. Like my childhood home, it had ceased to exist except in memory. No amount of meds or rehab would bring back the person I had been before. I became bitter and negative. I was mad at the doctors, mad at my husband for saving my life, mad at my body for failing me.

Every facet of my life changed. My body would never function or feel the same way again. The unstitched wound healed into a jagged ridge that changed how my clothes fit affected how I ate and drank, and hurt if I bent too far or lifted more than a carton of milk. I required medications that came with side effects, some worse than the ailments they treated. My headaches went from minor annoyances to chronic, daily, excruciating events that kept me down for days or weeks. Even when my surgical scars healed, my body was still broken and painful, necessitating years of hospital and pharmaceutical intervention. Mentally, I struggled with everything the changes meant, from a loss of independence to my tanking self-esteem .

Where others seemed to be set free by their survival, I felt as if I’d been locked up without a key.

A series of unfortunate mishaps landed me in the ambulance that day. I was scheduled to have a small procedure, one the doctor assured me was routine and no big deal. Then, just as the anesthesia kicked in, there was a tiny change of plans. The next day, I went home expecting to return to work and my life in two weeks. Three days later, I was bleeding internally and suffering from sepsis, leading to multiple emergency surgeries and a litany of comorbidities. I add these few details to help explain the abrupt nature of how dramatically my life changed .

Where I had been fearless and able before the event — that’s what I’ll call it — I was scared and weak after it. Needing help into the shower or using my walker to stand left me shaking in tears. No woman wants the man she loves to see her at her most disgusting and vulnerable. No adult daughter wants her retired mother to care for her like a toddler again. I certainly never wanted my fifteen-year-old daughter to take over for home health care when the insurance ran out. But it all happened and it changed how I felt about myself, others, and the world.

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I returned to work a few months later but couldn’t keep up with the pace of the job I’d held previously. My company found me a couple of part-time positions, but it was still a struggle to show up every day and be a good employee. My mind was willing, but my body wasn’t much of a team player. I would have three more operations, three more recoveries, and two years of staring at the ceiling, wondering why I was still fighting, before retiring at the age of forty . On my last day of work, my youngest child left for college. In the deafening silence, I found the hell I only thought I had escaped in 2014.

To go from an able woman in her thirties, with a full-time job and two amazing kids, to the loathsome thing that lived in bed for six months straight, broke me in a way from which I have never recovered. From the dark of my bedroom, various hospital rooms, or just the abyss of my thoughts, I watched life around me go on. My son graduated college and I watched on Facetime. My friends went on vacation and got promotions, and I read it on Facebook. My husband gave up his hobbies, friends, and carefree spirit to take care of me as the years ticked on, and I resented it all .

Finally, I got it through my thick skull that my old life was gone forever. But I wasn’t. I was alive and had the opportunity to rebuild myself into something new if only I could get out of my way. I set my first goal post-event: To learn to embrace life again like those Pollyannas in my support group. I owed it to myself and my loved ones to get up, get dressed, and get on with the business of living.

Ten years have passed since I lay in that hospital bed, lamenting my survival.

There have been some really hard decisions and a lot of healing. I’ve come to realize how fortunate I am to be here, and how much worse some people have it. I‘ve also learned that it is okay to mourn the life I left behind. Grieving is a cycle — one that I have ridden like a merry-go-round for a decade. It started with denial that things would return to normal, then progressed to anger, mostly directed inward but sometimes at others for daring to live the life I wanted. The bargaining and depression continued, vacillating between giving up for good and convincing myself the negativity was only making me sicker. And, finally, the acceptance that this is who I am, which is more than just my struggle. I am proud of who I have become, not because I chose it but because I had no choice. I am a survivor.

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Mindi Boston is a novelist, freelance writer, and former journalist, based out of Tennessee. Her work has been featured in many print magazines, newspapers, and online publications — including Yahoo! Life and MSN Lifestyle.

This article was originally published at Medium . Reprinted with permission from the author.

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Opinion: What I’ve learned about living alone after losing my wife of 42 years

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This year, at the age of 72, I started living alone for the first time in my life.

For 42 years before that, I lived with my wife, Diane, who passed away in December. In college and as a young man, I always had roommates.

When my wife was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, about a year ago, she tried to prepare me for living alone. She taught me how to do the laundry. She showed me where the contact information was for the various tradespeople who repair our 100-year-old house.

All this was necessary, practical information, but I told her I didn’t understand how I could live without her.

VALLEY VILLAGE, CA-MAY 8, 2023:Maxine Shelley, 82, who lives alone at her home in Valley Village, is photographed with her 2 dogs, Ruby Mae, left, a 7 year old bichon frise, and Rylee Mae, a 7 year old teacup shih tzu. Her husband, Richard Shelley, a drummer for the band, Iron Butterfly, died, unexpectedly, last September. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

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“We have a wonderful family and really good friends,” she said. “Depend on them.”

This has been good advice, but family and friends don’t live under the same roof as me. They’re not there when I want to complain about a McMansion going up down the block or when I wake from a bad dream in the middle of the night.

It’s also difficult to live alone in a house suited for four people. It was just right for me, my wife and our two children. Now, it feels vast (even though it’s not), and I wander its empty spaces at night like a character in a Gothic horror novel, startled by every floorboard creak.

It would be easier to live by myself if I were more outgoing. Diane was much more social than I am, and she drew a steady stream of people to our door and engaged in conversations with everyone — not just friends and neighbors but also the mailman and Amazon delivery employees.

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Diane was what my mother referred to as a balabusta — Yiddish for a good homemaker. She was always vacuuming, dusting, straightening. I became accustomed to her literally sweeping through a room.

I miss her familiar motions.

To compensate for their absence, I fill the house with noise and light. I blast the stereo. I turn on lamps in every room as it grows dark. I watch television as I eat dinner with my new best friend, CNN’s Erin Burnett.

I didn’t need the U.S. Surgeon General’s recent report on loneliness to know that it’s dangerous to be alone for extended periods of time. But even on my best days, when it comes to groups I’m not much of a joiner. I tried an online site for people who have lost their spouses, but it felt like being locked in a virtual room saturated with grief. It made me want to be by myself.

Isolation is a slippery slope that can send you splashing down into depression’s depths. To avoid it, I do what my wife advised and see or at least talk to family and friends as much as possible.

None of this, though, teaches me how to live alone.

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I suspect I just have to avoid being lonely — a neat trick if you can pull it off. I’ve made the effort to keep busy, to exercise, continue working full-time and meet friends for lunch. People tell me that eventually I’ll be ready for a relationship with someone else — the ultimate cure for living alone. I can’t imagine it. Just as I wouldn’t want to be the quarterback who takes over from Tom Brady, I wouldn’t want to be the woman who takes over from Diane. She was the one. For now, at least, I prefer not to date the equivalent of Mac Jones.

I resolve to go on alone and make the best of it, engaging in small talk with the delivery people and listening to sad songs (Linda Ronstadt’s “Long Long Time” is possibly the saddest song ever sung).

As I wander from room to room during my insomnia midnights, the house sometimes comes alive with memories. Diane’s piano still squats in the music room where she taught her students, and I can hear her patient voice correcting their mistakes. Upstairs are our children’s bedrooms where I read them “Green Eggs and Ham” and “Where the Wild Things Are.” The fireplace in the living room used to be our family gathering spot during holidays, the burning, crackling oak and birch punctuating our conversations.

William Faulkner wrote: “The past is never dead . It’s not even past.” I never understood this famous quote until I began to live alone. Diane may be gone and my kids may live more than 1,000 miles away, but the memories keep them close and me, not so much alone.

Bruce Wexler is a book ghostwriter and editor in the Chicago area.

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Guest Essay

‘Oppenheimer,’ My Uncle and the Secrets America Still Doesn’t Like to Tell

An illustration, rendered in soft yellows and oranges, of a group of spectators facing a bright light that casts long shadows behind them.

By Ariel Kaminer

Ms. Kaminer is an editor at Times Opinion.

The darkened sky stretches over miles of desert sand as in the distance, from an illuminated scaffold, the object rises that will change the world. The first atomic test is the defining scene in “Oppenheimer,” which won seven Academy Awards on Sunday night, including best picture. The scene plays out over seven or so minutes of steadily escalating tension: No one knew whether the bomb would go off at all that night and, if it did, whether it would incinerate the whole world.

Watching the film on opening weekend, I found the scene excruciating, even though history had long since recorded the outcome. I just kept staring at the Los Alamos scientists who gathered to witness the big event, lying under the stars as though taking in an outdoor movie, with nothing more to protect them than a small eye shade. The physicist Edward Teller is the only one who seems to recognize the need for any precautions, and he addresses it by applying sunscreen.

“Oppenheimer” is a movie about a singular genius, an extraordinary collaboration and a turning point in history. But it’s also a lesson in applied physics: the way a lone catalyst may trigger a chain reaction whose impact cannot be predicted or controlled. J. Robert Oppenheimer’s greatest triumph set into motion forces that brought about his downfall. An innovation designed to make the world safer in the long term made it manifestly more dangerous . And in subsequent atomic tests through the postwar years, many Americans were deliberately exposed to radiation, to see what the blast and its aftermath would do to them.

Soldiers were marched through detonation sites when the sand cooled down enough to walk on; pilots were sent through the still-billowing clouds; sailors were lined up on nearby boats. At the Yucca Flat testing grounds in Nevada, an Army band was even summoned to play. I know that last part because my uncle Richard Gigger was the band’s leader.

Richard enlisted in 1946. He was a 16-year-old Black kid in a still-segregated Army, but it got him from East St. Louis to Germany. While there, he got permission to attend a music training program in Dachau, of all places, led by members of the Berlin Philharmonic. It changed his life. Over the next decades he performed for heads of state, led ticker-tape parades through Manhattan and made numerous appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

On multiple occasions between 1952 and 1955, his responsibilities also included playing “Shake, Rattle and Roll” to accompany the most destructive force in human history.

Other atomic veterans , as they have come to be known, were in the South Pacific, wading through radioactive water while filling in blast craters. You can hear former service members speak about a range of these experiences — with pride, honor and a deep sense of betrayal — in a documentary called “ I Have Seen the Dragon .” Richard’s in it, too.

After 25 years spanning three wars, he retired from the Army and met my aunt Ellen. Together they started teaching music at San Fernando High School, where they led the marching band to so many championships — 13 in all, 11 of them consecutively — that it almost wasn’t fair. Along the way they mentored hundreds or maybe thousands of kids, many of whom still credit them with changing their lives. A school building and an intersection were renamed in tribute. There’s a huge mural , too. But eventually Richard’s military service caught up with him, as it did for so many others.

For Richard it started with a pituitary tumor. Surgeons removed it, but the result, a few years later, was a cranial bleed and brain damage that worsened over time.

As a kid I found my uncle kind but intimidating, a larger-than-life mix of showman’s bravado and military rigor. After the bleed, all that was gone. He moved slowly and said little. He could still play musical instruments, but in the documentary, it’s my aunt who speaks. Richard sits, silent. He died three months later.

For five decades, atomic veterans were forbidden to tell anyone about their experience, not even a spouse or doctor. That has made it hard to get a reliable accounting of their numbers, or of the medical consequences they suffered, which include leukemia, thyroid cancer, esophagus cancer and multiple myeloma. It has also made it hard for them or their family members to get needed support. To prove her case to the Department of Veterans Affairs, my aunt spent long hours in the library reading scientific articles about atmospheric ionizing radiation (many of which she first had to get translated from Japanese), went digging through the archives of old Nevada newspapers, consulted doctors. She was rebuffed many times but finally, after seven years, the V.A. relented. It confirmed that Richard’s condition was most likely caused by his exposure. That qualified her to receive modest compensation.

A number of conditions are now “ presumptive ” for atomic vets, meaning that they’re assumed to be a result of their service. But there’s no way to know how many people suffered or died before that policy was adopted or how many other conditions may also be the result of exposure — nor how many families couldn’t undertake the kind of research my aunt did or persevere through so many setbacks. The veterans’ numbers are dwindling, but these questions remain urgent, since the effects of radiation can be passed on to children and grandchildren.

“Oppenheimer” has been criticized for not showing the devastation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think it was the right choice. It would have been offensive, maybe even obscene, to reduce that suffering to a subplot of a great-man biopic, a movie that, however deeply based in fact , is ultimately an entertainment, a fiction. Leaving Japan’s horror to the imagination, or to the intrusive thoughts you can see Oppenheimer struggling to shut out, felt to me like appropriate humility about the limits of representation, as when the film goes all but silent when the blast first registers.

As for the bomb’s effect on American bodies, the sight of those unprotected scientists is the closest the film comes. The scene plays like a metaphor for how naïvely optimistic the nuclear program was, how unprepared the nation, or even the world, was for the terrors it would unleash. After the test, when the Army guys crate up the remaining bombs and drive them away, Oppenheimer tells Teller, “Once it’s used, nuclear war, perhaps all war, becomes unthinkable.” Equally unthinkable, I suspect, would have been the idea that the United States would intentionally inflict some of the bomb’s harmful effects on its own service members.

If “Oppenheimer” were a more traditional film, Japan’s surrender might have been the climax. But the movie continues for another hour, turning its attention to Oppenheimer’s struggle to retain his security clearance, a fight that plays out in parallel with a Washington insider’s struggle to secure a cabinet post. It’s possible to leave the theater with the impression that, in the United States at least, the main victim of the bomb was Oppenheimer’s career.

For my uncle, the fallout came later. For some other atomic vets or their families — or for people living near test sites such as those in Nevada and the Marshall Islands and of course for people in Japan — it may yet be in the future. The film honored at the Oscars told a very specific story, but countless other lives trace back to that day, too. In one way or another, no one emerged untouched. We are all living downwind of that first momentous blast.

Ariel Kaminer is an editor at Times Opinion.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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