Death is inevitable. Everything that lives must eventually face death. There are two certainties and guarantees in the passage of life. The indubitable is the birth of an individual and death of the individual. The end of life for an individual is perceived as an enemy to humanity and a horrid event the individual and family are encountering. The pronouncement of the death is an afflictive and gut wrenching pain for the caregiver as well as the family. While dying can be considered a joyous occasion for the person dying, the thought of death is faced with uncertainty and fear.
The dying often experience grief. Although the dying is experiencing grief, the semblance is not the same as the gut wrenching pain the caregiver will understand. The grief the dying feels according to Speerstra and Anderson, “The dying will grieve for all we’re are leaving behind (xvii). ” There will be no individual untouched by the sting of death. Pain is experienced by everyone involved. While watching the movie Wit, I experienced several emotions. The movie evoked an awareness of the grief. An emotion I felt as if I had overcame came rushing back and caused an uncontrollable flow of tears.
Those tears informed me, that | was not over the death of my mentor and I need to deal with those emotions. Vivian Bearing had stage four cancer like my mentor and the emotions I felt when she died were the emotions, I experienced while watching the movie. The movie was challenging as a result of what I experienced over a year ago, the movie enabled me to receive another outlook of person who is dying and has made peace with death. While Vivian transitioned alone without family and friends around, my mentor transitioned with family and friends.
Perhaps Vivian was so focused on her career she avoided establishing any relationships with people. She might have thought establishing relationships would deter her from achieving her goals. This movie allowed me to take a journey and reflect on the life and legacy of my mentor. Lakisha Mitchell, my mentor, during her transition process stated, “I do not want to leave this earth without making an impact of others for the glory of God and leaving a God-size footprint. ” Vivian and Lakisha wanted to impact the lives of others and they accomplished the aforementioned in different arenas.
While Dr. Bearing changed and fashioned the lives of individuals within the academic world, Lakisha influenced individuals spiritually insider and outside of the church. We witnessed the impacted Dr. Bearing had on Dr. Posner who had been a former student. There were two particular interactions in which I witnessed the impact she had on his life. The first interaction when Dr. Posner informed Dr. Bearing prior to her pelvic examination, he explained her class looked good on his transcript for medical school.
The last instance was after Dr. Bearing even though the scene was controversial and has many interpretations maybe Dr. Posner wanted her to be a full code because of the influential impact she contributed to his life academically. However, we may examine the behavior Dr. Posner and other the medical personnel lacked interpersonal skills. The staff with the exception of the Susie treated Dr. Bearing as if she was a test subject rather than a human beings they lost sight of the reason they stated practicing and started seeing death as the enemy. Death becomes an enemy to be conquered and vanquished (Miller-McLemore pg. 7).
This very thought processed caused her medical staff to ignore and look the other way when the experimental drug was harming Dr. Bearing and not helping to cure her ovarian cancer. Those doctors were obliterate to reason they became physicians. They neglect to treat Dr. Bearing as if she was their highest priority and to do no harm. Dr. Kelekian caused Dr. Bearing harm in the name of medicine because she was strong according to his definition and interpretation of the word strong. The movie lacked what Dr. Ira Byock describes as doctoring, “Real doctoring involves commitment, loving intention, full attention, and a willingness to listen with one’s heart open, despite empathy’s emotions toll (Anderson & Speerstra pg. Xi).
The medical doctors in Wit lacked this characteristic in the movie. This reality of this film was displayed cinematically in the movie Lars and the Real Girl than in Wit. While I was deeply disturbed how they treated the death of Bianca, I was rather touched by how Dr. Dagmar convinced the whole town to become a part of Lars’ reality. Dr. Dagmar was committed to Lars’ healing process. These two movies are aiding in my healing process of losing my mentor. After close observations, I was able to determine that Lars did not have a need for Bianca until Karin’s pregnancy.
My thought process unable me to come to the conclusion that Lars associated pregnancy with death. Partly because his mother died giving birth to him and the ambiance Lars has toward child birth challenges him to find a coping mechanism. This movie challenge me to look through other lens to see the beauty and process of life on how a community is willing to band together. They assisted Lars up until the burial of Bianca in which I thought was unspeakable but was necessary for Lars to complete his grieving process. Everyone who has begins the grieving process must complete all the steps of grieving.
Lars and the Real Girl demonstrated on how unresolved grief can lead to isolation, alienation, guilt and depression. Lars and Gus’s father committed suicide perhaps the suicide was a result of Lars’ father never processing his wife’s death. This maybe another reason why the community banded together to become a part of Lars delusion. We see how Gus experienced grief for leaving Lars alone with their father was probably clinically depressed. Even though Lars maybe considered to be ill but his brother, but Lars was the only person who took initiation to begin his healing process and well as the healing process for the whole town.
