Week Ten: The Grief Process

                This week’s reading from Chapter 16, I found that the grief process was incredibly stimulating, knowing that there is comfort in the process.  The first step of the grief process is to be able to acknowledge the reality of the loss of your loved one.  This is often the hardest step to overcome, simply  because, if your loved one was incredibly close to you, they doubtless had an impact on every facet of your life.  It is way too easy to simply deny that your loved one has deceased, and that their life if forever gone.  The second step, is to work through the emotional turmoil, finding your own way to express the complete range of emotions that losing your loved one surfaces.  It is highly important to realize your emotions, instead of repressing them and trying to avoid them.  The third step is, you have to be able to adjust to the environment where the deceased is absent.  The closer your lost loved one was to you, the harder this step is to overcome.  You have to be able to able to live your life to the fullest, even with your loss.  The fourth, and final step, is to loosen ties to the deceased.  Strange as it sounds, being able to “let go” of your loved one may be the hardest step to fully accept.  This is because it is incredibly hard to finalize your goodbye to your lost loved one.  Death is permanent, and irreversible, a part of life, in fact, but knowing this does not make this does any easier to accept. 

                I haven’t personally lost anyone that was incredibly close to me, however, I do know quite a few friends who have.  For example, my friend lost her two babies.  She lost them when she was five months pregnant, when her water broke too soon.  Needless to say, both of her babies died.  She went through the grief process, and it was not at all easy for her.  Over time, however, she was able to accept their loss, and move on with her life.  She was just able to give birth to her first child, and this baby has become the light of her world. 

                I would like to learn more about the grief processing and avoidance study that was done in the United States and China.  Especially relating to the part about how women show more of their grief processing than men do. 

Week Nine: Longevity

From this week’s reading I found the section on longevity intriguing. Longevity is defined as the number of years an individual can expect to live. The two factors that determine longevity are genetic and environmental factors. Now that longevity has been defined I can discuss the three of longevity. I did not even know that there were three types of longevity.  The first type of longevity is average life expectancy, also known as median life expectancy, and this is the age at which half of the people born in a particular year will have died.  The textbook contributes that the reason why the average life expectancy has increased in the United States in the twentieth century is because the decrease of infant mortality and the improvement in medical technology.  The second type of longevity is useful life expectancy, and this defined as the number of years that a person is free from any debilitating chronic disease or impairment, and the third type of longevity is maximum life expectancy.  This third type is the oldest age to which any person lives. 

My friend’s great-grandparents are a perfect example of maximum life expectancy.  His great-grandmother is 102, and his great-grandfather is 98 years old.  This is interesting to me because the textbook states that humans are limited to 120 years of life.  His whole family has amazing genetics for longevity of life. 

I would like to learn more about ethnic and gender differences in longevity because, if there was any improvement that could be made to countries with a current low life expectancy of longevity, then maybe the improvement would increase their life expectancy average.