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archimo 's review for:
The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After
by Julie Yip-Williams
(Review continuing to be edited as more reflection occurs)
An accomplishment of honestly conveying life, and the end of life, with cancer. I am grateful the author chose to write, and then to share her story with the world.
Also, read a recent article in a sort of ‘back to earth’ lifestyle magazine written by a woman who was a birth doula but was becoming a death doula, in part because of how the US does not have a good death process/culture and tries to hide it. And thinking that Julie ended up being her own death doula and how hard is that.
P 173-4 “But a beating heart alone does not make a life. ... Are they that afraid of death? Or do they love life that much? Or are they weighed down by the obligations of love that dictate they must live as long as possible under any circumstances for those who rely on them? What motivates them, fear or love, death or life? ... I suspect that the old man and X, like many people, are more afraid of death than they are in love with life, and that an animalistic fear overrides whatever rational intelligence they possess;I would guess that they fear the unknown of what Shakespeare called the “undiscovered country,” the probable nothingness they believe lies beyond this life despite their wavering belief in God; they fear having the fire of their existence extinguished as if they had never been; they fear being small and irrelevant and forgotten.”
P250 from /Paula/ by Allende (p23) “”The mind selects, enhances, and betrays; happenings fade from memory; people forget one another and, in the end, all that remains is the journey of the soul, those rare moments of spiritual revelation. What actually happened isn’t what matters, only the resulting scars and distinguishing marks.””
An accomplishment of honestly conveying life, and the end of life, with cancer. I am grateful the author chose to write, and then to share her story with the world.
Also, read a recent article in a sort of ‘back to earth’ lifestyle magazine written by a woman who was a birth doula but was becoming a death doula, in part because of how the US does not have a good death process/culture and tries to hide it. And thinking that Julie ended up being her own death doula and how hard is that.
P 173-4 “But a beating heart alone does not make a life. ... Are they that afraid of death? Or do they love life that much? Or are they weighed down by the obligations of love that dictate they must live as long as possible under any circumstances for those who rely on them? What motivates them, fear or love, death or life? ... I suspect that the old man and X, like many people, are more afraid of death than they are in love with life, and that an animalistic fear overrides whatever rational intelligence they possess;I would guess that they fear the unknown of what Shakespeare called the “undiscovered country,” the probable nothingness they believe lies beyond this life despite their wavering belief in God; they fear having the fire of their existence extinguished as if they had never been; they fear being small and irrelevant and forgotten.”
P250 from /Paula/ by Allende (p23) “”The mind selects, enhances, and betrays; happenings fade from memory; people forget one another and, in the end, all that remains is the journey of the soul, those rare moments of spiritual revelation. What actually happened isn’t what matters, only the resulting scars and distinguishing marks.””