English106-01-03 Introductory Composition

Terry’s father is not dealing with his wife’s illness very well. It seems like he is unwilling to accept the fact that his wife is dying. He cannot make decisions about the funeral arrangements and he using the excuse that she is still alive to avoid making the decisions about the funeral. Her father is on edge about the whole thing he seems to be a complete wreck. Her father has also become short tempered and has become increasingly angry about the situation. Terry’s mother has tried to keep the family calm and collected but they are all starting to fall apart in their own ways. Her father really went a little crazy when his wife actually died and he apologized to the family for that. The way he acted was understandable people general act a little irrational when they are close to a person that is dying.
Throughout these pages Terry’s mother is really suffering with her cancer it has really done a number on her and you can see it in her and in her family. She cannot eat and she basically takes her medicine and sleeps throughout the day. But she is nearing the end and the family is starting to accept it a little better especially Terry, she has realized that death is part of life just like birth or any other part of life. Terry’s mother finally dies and they buried her. Terry’s dealt with her mother’s death fairly well she has talked to people her grandmother and Mimi. Terry talks about how she stood by Brooke and she felt like a midwife to her mother’s birth and she is relating death to birth and how they are part of life and similar in some ways.

The story reached its culmination: Diane took her last breath. Finally she is ready to go and is glad because of that. She feels peace and happiness that she has the entire family around her. Especially she is happy to have Terry next to her, because Terry is the only woman in the family besides her. They are close; Diane tries to give Terry her last advices. Diane is glad that Terry tries to make her ending not “so boring” by wearing colorful clothes. She finally died touching her husband.
Terry’s dad had troubles with realizing the situation. He was in continuous tension and even feared to have a heart attack. As a man, he should make decisions, he should control the life; but now there is nothing that he can do, he lost control over the situation. He does not know how to deal with it, how to behave, how to protect his children, and the only way that he found is to enclose the children from Diane’s death, to force them to escape. He said: “Get out! All of you! This is my house and this is my wife!” He wanted to protect them. Also he tried to escape too by going to basketball games, picking up his car, refusing to think about funeral. He was simply afraid and confused. Like Terry pointed out, “An individual does not get cancer, a family does”, because victim is not only Diane herself, but her entire family that will have wounds in their hearts.
Terry also feels this different palette of feelings. Chapter “Dark-eyed junco” begins with the bird which has hit Terry’s window. She described it as a “dark-eyed” junco that symbolizes her mother; her mother also had “eyes which widen each day as they retreat father into her skull”. She always had her mother next to her and now there is a sudden change: she is not a child anymore. Even all of her birds that she describes throughput these chapters are just black and white. Dark-eyed junco, crows do not have bright colorings. But when her mother finally found piece, her tone has changed and she depicts pink, fuchsia flamingos, green mangroves, blue sky. Everything became colorful again, she is back into life. She realized that the death is the part of our lives, she compares it to the birth and sex: “it is confluence of evanescence and flesh”. Refuge and Great Salt Lake helps her healing and finding a harmony inside herself. Now she will follow her feeling as her mother taught her.

Terry's father is not handling Diane's death very well. I don't think that he knows how to express his feelings and just becomes angry with everyone else. He is the one that is constantly there with Diane. He never gets a break or distraction from her condition. Eventually he takes out his anger on Terry and says, "Enough is enough. I can't take it anymore. You can go home to Brooke, to the peace of another house and forget what is happening. I can't" (216). The stress of losing his wife is definitely taking its toll on him. After he kicks everyone out of his house, he has a change of heart. He realizes that he needs his family there with him. He says, "Please come. I need all of you. I don't want to be alone" (228). "He wanted to be there when she died, and yet he didn't" (230). It has to be immensely hard for him to lose his wife. They've raised a family together, grown old together, and have always been with each other. He realizes that it is better after she dies because she is no longer suffering and is at peace.

Terry has realized that there are situations that she cannot fix. A bird hits the window and at first she thinks about saving it. Instead she just lets it be and goes back to her mother. (210) She still finds comfort with the outdoors.(214) Terry realizes that she has been selfish. "And then it hits me- I still have a mother. She is in the room next door and deserves to know how I feel, to see the underside of my heart." (226) She has not really changed though. That is still a selfish thought. She could be concered about what her mother has to say in her last weeks alive instead of how she feels herself. Terry does spend a lot of her time next to her mother trying to comfort her during her last days. She was right by her side when she died. She has been meditating by cleaning the house and doing housework.(233) I think that cleaning helps to relieve stress and take your mind off of what is happening. It gives Terry something else to focus her attention on. She puts her mother's hair from the hairbrush outside for the birds to use for nests. (233) It is another that Terry is connecting her mother to birds. The birds will carry on a part of Diane by using her hair.

Near the end of someone death, the people around them can either accept that it inevitably will happen or become angry with those around them. In this case, Terry's dad does the latter and takes his frustration and anger of losing Diane out on the rest of the family.

Starting on New Years Eve when everyone is discussing funeral arrangements instead of resolutions, he first blows up at Terry (211-212). Once she finally said something and put out some ideas, since she can think clearly and accept that her mother is dying. "If you have all the answers, Terry, then why don't you just go ahead and plan the whole thing" (212). This was said after he was pacing back and forth in the living room unable to make any decisions for the funeral plans. I think that since he is the only one that is truly there with Diane day and night with no “breaks” from her illness, that it is weighing heaviest on him. The next time he breaks down in this section Terry becomes quite frightened. “His eyes were red with rage. His voice pinned me against the wall. My home will not be turned into a hospital. Enough is enough. I can’t take it anymore. It’s so easy for you to play Pollyanna and say what a wonderful experience this is, but you don’t have to live here. You can go home to Brooke, to the peace of another house and forget what is happening. I can’t” (216). I thought that this was the first time that his selfishness has truly has shone through. He doesn’t realize that everyone in the family is hurting, maybe not as much as him because he is surrounded by it constantly but it is always on their minds.

Later in the reading, after he gets mad again and kicks everyone out, I’m not sure why Terry and her brothers agreed not to return to the house again (228). They say that their father needs to be with their Mother when she goes and I don’t understand why. Yes, they came into the world after she met their father but still, they deserve to be with her during this time as much as he does.

After he kicks them out, we see that he starts to recognize that he wants and needs his family around during this difficult time. “She’s going quickly. Please come. I need all of you. I don’t want to be alone” (239). He now truly believes that she would die any minute and he realized that he needs them, for Diane and for his sake. Now that it is truly the end of his wife’s life, he at long last he grasps that in death she will finally be at peace; as will the family knowing that her pain has been silenced.

In some ways I can’t blame him for not being able to rationalize and getting angry, but he never should have pushed his family away. Maybe instead they should have pulled together more and made it a bonding experience to show how strong their family could be.

Terry's dad is not coping well with her illness, and he is on edge the whole time in this reading. "Dad is becoming increasingly tense, pacing around the family room, unable to make decisions," and this is clear that the sickness is becoming more and more stressful on Hank(212). He is very fearful of Diane's death. Hank is increasingly agitated by the fact that he is losing control of everything. The stress on Hank is getting so bad that at one point he thinks he is having a heart attack. Hank also dislikes the fact that the house is becoming like a hospital to him, and every time he sees all of this it makes him suffer more and realize that he is losing his wife. Hank comes home to find a lot of people over the house, basically there to see Diane for the last time, and Hank forces everybody out of the house so that he can be there alone with Diane(227). This is another example of how Hank feels like he is losing a hold on everything he loves. Terry has been doing a lot of cleaning after her mother death(233). Terry goes to the Great Salt Lake and is alone. She is in a den and she is singing to herself without the embarrassment of being herd(238). Terry seems to be alone in the time after her mother's death because the men in her life are in the south, and she seems like she has a lot of time to think to herself.

This reading is mostly about wait. Wait for death. Terry's mothers death. Everyone has mixed feelngs. All of her family does not wish that she dies, but at the same time also wishes that she does die and get over with all the suffering that she has to go through and they have to watch. This reading also shoes how the tolerance level of the family has been stretched to its limits already, like a huge emotional strain due to lots of different emotions racing through them.
The writers dad is the first to lose control and snap at the whole family to leave their mother alone so that he could be alone with her when she died. Terry is kind of angry at this behaviour from her father even though she does understand what made him do it.
'I asked her once again if she thought Brooke and I should have a child'. By making this statement Terry is now showing that she does kind of understand what having a child would mean now that she has looked at her and her mothers relationship as close as possible. She however is still a little bit selfish about the commitment that comes with having a child.
The majority of the reading concerns just her mother and her family, she mentions the birds that she is second-most attached to at the very end of the reading where she is looking to them for an escape from the worries of the world.