This week there were many different themes through the readings. One that stood out to me was death. This really stood out to me when I was working on the homework questions. Death is a theme that everyone can relate to. Whether it was a friend, relative, or even a pet, we have all had an experience with death. What really stood out to me was the quote
“We do not experience the dying of others in a genuine sense; we are at best always just ‘there’ too.” -Heidegger
The way that I interpreted this quote was that, we cannot feel what the person who is dying is feeling. We will never know if they are suffering, in pain, or what pain they could potentially be feeling. When Heidegger states that we are always just there, I believe he is explaining the fact that all we can do when someone is dying is just be there for them. We let them know how loved they are, and that the only thing we can do is accept their passing no matter how hard it is on us. When I was reading this, I was relating this to one of the hardest deaths I have gone through.
In February 2007, My aunt was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. I was her favorite niece, and everyone knew that. We had a bond that could never be broken. Even though the cancer was so far advanced, my aunt still tried to fight for her life. The cancer wound up spreading to her lungs, and eventually to her brain. She lost her fight in July 2009. She got diagnosed when I was 10, and died when I was 12. I know that I was young, but I can remember everything clearly to this day. One of the last requests that she had was that I do a reading at her funeral. Without a doubt I said yes. I remember my mom getting the call at 5am that she had passed and at that moment I had no idea what to think. I lost the person who I was the closest to.
How do I relate this to the quote? Well, throughout her two years of suffering, all I could think was how does she feel? Is she in pain? Before she had passed, she was put into hospice care. Her body was there, but it did not seem like she was really there. She was almost out of it. She could barely talk, and it was almost like she was asleep the whole time. The only thing that I could do was visit her. I made sure that i went up there as much as I possibly could. I made sure she knew hoe much I loved her. When she requested that I read at her funeral, there was no denying that I would. I would do anything for her and if reading was what she wanted, then reading is what I did.
Everyone has a feeling on is there more that we can do? Can we make them feel more comfortable? Can we make them feel more at home? Can we take the pain away? If we do not really know how the person is feeling, then it is very hard to be able to help in anyway. I found this article on how you can help someone who is battling cancer, and things you can do to make them feel as if you are there for them. You can find that article here.
Thank you for reading my blog. Comments are appreciated.
Gabrielle Boncal's Philosophy 210 Blog 
Hi Gabrielle, I really appreciate you sharing this very personal and sincere interpretation of Heidegger as it pertains to very real and tragic experiences. It’s easy to get lost in an often emotionless and impartial approach to philosophy as we are attempting to separate ourselves from our experiences and emotions and delving into the incomprehensible makeup of our beings; it was nice to read this and come back to a care that is not only for our own existence but for the existences of all of those around us even if we can never fully understand them. As I mentioned in my last post, in high school I lost my uncle who was my greatest mentor, role model, and friend; he lived in NYC and died with in a matter of moments so I did not get to share those last moments with him but our empathy is as good here as it is there when it comes to death. That being said, It was a bit of a different experience to yours as because he slipped away so quickly and sealed off my ability to empathize for him in the sense of a living experience of any kind of suffering, I immediately thought of his wife and kids, his parents and siblings and this empathy is far harder to take than that which we lose the ability for upon the death of another. I found it very interesting and inspiring that your striving empathy forced you to think about what you could possibly do to help your aunt in this time as it made me consider what I can do for all of those people that are now without my uncle who held him closer than I could ever imagine. This is a very interesting interpretation and example of the variability of the others experience of death, thank you so much for sharing!
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I, too, felt an overwhelming amount death as a theme this week. Death in general and suicide are not easy topics to talk about at all, however once considered, they are of the most complex topics. Such topics are so personal and unique in that two or more individuals may have the same cause of death, the experience and everything that leads up to it make it very different for each individual. In one of the readings that you quoted, it was brought to our attention that death is very common, we all die in the end and each and every death is unique. It cannot be transferred from person to person, nor do we exactly know what it is like until we experience it for ourselves, but then we cannot pass this information on. As Dan had mentioned, I also appreciate the way you shared such a personal experience with us. Cancer is an extremely relatable topic for me, as well. I have watched many people that I love both win and lose these battles. We often ask ourselves, is there more that we can do? We cannot stop the inevitable, but if we do everything in our power to make sure they are happy and as comfortable as possible, we can hopefully find some comfort in ourselves as well. After all, we are the ones who mourn the loss once our loved ones are gone. If we have no regrets, I hope that there is a sense of peace that comes along with that.
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Gabrielle, thank you for sharing your story. It sounds like that had to be very hard to go through, especially at that age. I’m sorry for your loss of such an important person in your life. I lost my grandfather to leukemia a couple years ago and can relate to those thoughts you had including about your aunt’s feeling. I think that the quote by Heidegger is very interesting as well. It’s clear that we can never feel what someone is feeling while they are dying. Each death is unique, and we have no way of really understanding what the person going through it is experiencing. Even if the person tries to tell us, it’s just not possible for us to really know what it’s like. Heidegger, and you in your post, are right in that we can just really be there and try to do what we can to help the person as much as we can.
I think what you said about your aunt in hospice is very interesting as well. How you said that it seemed like she wasn’t really there. I went through something similar with my grandpa, as well as my girlfriend’s grandfather, that was put in hospice. They seemed as if they weren’t really there anymore. It was very hard for everyone, because we were all so used to them being with it. I’ve heard people say before that even when people are in comas, they sometimes know who is there and what they say. That maybe the hospice patients like that are still aware even though to us they seem so distant. It’s interesting to think that maybe in these cases, due to what we can actually witness, if we (the patient’s loved ones) are the only ones really “there” for the death. And that the dying victim/patient isn’t actually “there” for their own death. And if maybe that is better, because we expect the disease to be painful and draining. Clearly, we’d never really know, because we can’t understand what the dying victim is really going through. But, it is weird to think about.
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Thank you for sharing your story. I also wrote about the topic on death as I feel it stuck out and was one of the main topics of all of the reading this week. Death and suicide can be a very difficult topic to discuss, but again thank you for sharing your experience, and I think you did very well at it. Unfortunately, death is something that is inevitable, we will all have to experience it, and go through it at some point. As Heidegger discusses, and what I wrote about in my blog this week is basically how we will never genuinely experience death of others. Meaning that we may be able to understand your feelings, or get a general feeling of what you do, and that we do not experience our own death and the death of others the same. I agree with this, and after reading Heidegger’s reading, and everyone’s blog post this week, there is even more evidence to produce this. Like after reading your post, I can definitely relate to knowing and having a family member with cancer, but cannot truly understand your experience because I myself did not go through it. Thank you again for sharing.
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