Call of Life: A Grandpa's Diagnosis

3. It was an average winter day. I woke up that Thursday and drug my feet to school as I did every morning. Once I was home from school, I sat by the warm fireplace and listened to the soothing sound of the crackling fire as I completed all of my homework. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The phone rang. The next five minutes spent on the phone would change the course of my entire life. With the phone in my hand, I could see that it was my grandma calling, so I happily answered. However, when I answered, I could feel the emotion in the atmosphere change. I heard tears on the other side of the phone. When my grandma collected her emotions she explained to me that my grandpa had gone for a checkup at the doctors earlier that week. That day,

In addition, there is not just a single emotion that people experience when they are faced with death. According to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, there are five stages of emotion that most people go through when they are faced with the realization of their impending death. These stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (Berger, 2014, p. 583). These stages do not have to occur in consecutive order, and sometimes someone may skip over a step, as well. According to Berger (2014), when a person is in denial, they are refusing to believe the reality of their looming death. The second stage, anger, is often directed toward others, such as the doctors or God for not helping him recover. The third stage, bargaining, is when the dying individual will try to make an agreement with God so that they can gain their health back. The fourth stage is depression, which is a feeling of gloom over the idea of dying and having no control over it. Lastly, people will accept the idea that death as an inevitable part of life (p.583). Though these five stages are not absolute, they are the main emotional experiences that people commonly go through when they are approaching their