Mother’s Last Days
Welcome to the Glenbrook Retirement Home. May I ask who you are visiting? Oh yes, you must be Mrs. Mitchell’s son. She talks about you so often. Right this way.
Ignore the other patients peeking from behind their doors. Walk past them, down the long hallway. You are the outsider here. Don’t forget that; you are now the crazy one, not them. In this place, sanity is like a dream that you struggle to remember throughout the day.
Scott, so nice to see you again. It’s been a while since your last visit. She asks about you every day. She’s just inside, go on in.
How is she today doctor? Ask anyway, even though the answer never changes.
Touch and go, really, no way to tell what will set her off. Honestly, she’s had better days. You don’t have to stay long. Just let her know you’re here and then you can be on your way.
Open the door; that is the first step. Open it slowly, don’t frighten her. She is like a child, and you the careful parent. Try not to cringe as you walk into the small room that your mother now calls home. Try not to smell the musty odor that pervades everything. Try not to wonder what sort of purgatory you have confined her to.
Who the hell do you think you are? Get out of my room! Doctor, doctor! Caress her hand as she whimpers. Stroke her wispy white hair and wonder why no one bothers to brush it anymore.
It’s me, mom. It’s me. Deep breaths. Just start talking, that’s the only way to get through this visit. Tell her one more time who you are. Tell her one more time about her grandchildren, her grandchildren who are too afraid of her screaming fits to come with you anymore. Tell her about your job and your new house. Tell her all of these things so she can forget them again. Know that is all that she can do.
I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before. Away…get away from me. Tell her your name, tell her that you love her, that you’re here for her. Show her pictures of the kids, tell her about Lisa’s school play and Taylor’s soccer game. She was the star. He scored the winning goal.
Stay for as long as you can this time, before saying, I really have to go now mother.
He relates how Irish storytellers would turn their backs to the audience, or speak from another room in order that the listeners would rely on their imaginations. These types of storytellers would not rely on gestures, or voice inflections, but instead chose to paint a mental picture for their audiences who created vivid imagery in their own minds. The story was paramount to the teller. Lindahl laments that current storytellers have become enamored with their own performances and become as important to the tale as the tale itself. The “quiet, shyer world of the lone, quiet voice figures too rarely in folkloric performance studies.” Lindahl compares the true märchen tellers to the quilters who are more intrigued in the stitches of their work, and not the beautiful patterns or to the skilled basket weavers who focus on the intended use of the basket and not the aesthetic beauty of the weaving patterns (McCarthy xix-xx). In today’s society, the figure of a great storyteller evokes an image of gestures, voice inflections, voice impersonations provided by a colorful character. Perhaps our sensory overload from high definition televisions, streaming video, IMAX theaters have dulled our appreciation for the story itself, which is created in our own imaginations by a teller with skilled
Movies and shows like, “Girl Interrupted” and “American Horror Story: Insane Asylum” portray hospitals in a way that has truth to it, however they portray the people in a negative way. It has become more known to society that the hospitals that the mentally ill are subjected to living in are not a good place to be. However, the stigma that mentally ill people are dangerous and cannot overcome their illness is still widely
The childcare industry has variables including childcare by a family member, a traditional caregiver or a day care center. It depends on a family’s situation as to which one benefits them most. The two types of childcare to be discussed are the traditional caregiver and a day care center. Parents must decide whether they want a one-on-one or a group setting for the care of their children.
University of Bath. 2005. ‘Babyish’ Barbie under attack from little girls, study shows. [press release] 19 December 2005. http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/releases/barbie161205.html
Hopkins, G. (2003). Is ability grouping the way to go---or should it go away? Retrieved April 10, 2004, from http://www.education-world.com/a_admin/admin009.shtml
Hoskins, S. (n.d.). The negative effects of barbie on young girls and the long term results. Retrieved from http://www.divinecaroline.com/life-etc/momhood/negative-effects-barbie-young-girls-long-term-results
If there is one general consensus among those who analyze America’s system of education, it is that we are lacking somewhere. Whether it’s in our inner-city schools, or rural districts, there is a distinct literacy dilemma that has yet to be resolved in our schools. Not only are we gravely behind other nations in our literacy rate and mathematics abilities, but there is also an increasing void within our schools. A method of segregation known as “ability grouping” has been a commonly used practice throughout the 90’s, and has changed the way in which primary and secondary school students are educated.
With school budget cuts, and no music instruments, more and more people are beginning to realize the benefits of having music in education. Providing music as part of education helps develop intelligence that leads to greater success in school and in life. Everyone from VH1 Save The Music to The National Association For Music Education agree that, “Every student in the nation should have an education in the arts.” These two companies are doing everything they can to get out the information about music, and the importance of resorting music education as part of the core curriculum.
Mueller expresses how stories allow children to achieve the impossible, such as flying when they are incapable and discovering the unknown. Stories give a life to the people who are unable to live, and that is one of the reasons why imagination is so essential to our world. The sharing of tales bring genuine joy to people without the need of materialistic items; it gives people the chance to relate to the author on a common ground. The sense of shared joy and mutual connection brings people closer together and expands on relationships. People begin to feel as if they are apart of an imagined community, which is a community in which people perceive themselves to be apart of, through common interests or relations from media or works of literature. Communities such as these allow people to connect with each other, despite never crossing paths. It allows the birth and the strengthening of relationships, for when people begin to converse with others, the first thing they do is find common experiences or interests that they share. In addition, a quote from Mueller, herself, adds to why we tell stories: “Because the story of our life becomes our life. Because each of us tell the same story but tell it differently, and none of us tells it the same way twice.” Tales are devised with the incorporation of the narrator’s imagination; it is a way to
...oes not hide the actual discrimination that is present in every single aspect of the Hinduism lifestyle. I’m sure that this is fine with some of those that are in the higher caste of Hindu society since the effect this bias has is not a detriment for them. However, I am also sure that there are many born into the lower classes that realize they have more to offer to society than their religion tells them they do. These examples show that, although the multiplicity of Hinduism may reflect the recognition that people are different, it does so in a discriminatory and biased manner.
It’s been noted that recent studies specify that “more than half of all 3-5-year-old children in the United States attend child-care centers prior to kindergarten” and “Given these high usage rates, the quality of these early child-care experiences has become an important public policy issue” (Peisner-Feinberg 2001). It is believed that part of the issue is a result of parents not knowing what the primary purpose of daycare/child care facilities are and what high quality daycares consist of in considering a their child should attend.
Many mothers, regardless of age or situation, share sympathetic life ideals. They all share the common goal of raising their children wholesome; they want to create an environment of love, nurture, and support for their children as well. A mother’s effort to implant good values in her children is perpetual; they remain optimistic and hope that their children would eventually become prosperous. However, some women were not fit to be mothers. Thus, two different roles of a mother are portrayed in As I Lay Dying written by William Faulkner. Faulkner uses the literary technique of first person narrative with alternating perspectives. By doing so, Faulkner adds authenticity and the ability to relate (for some) to the two characters Addie Bundren and Cora Tull. The first person narrative acts as an important literary technique because it allows the reader to experience the opposing views of Addie and Cora; they are both mothers who act as foils to each other because of their diverse opinions and outlooks on motherhood, religion and life.
Since the beginning of time, toys have often been an indicator of the way a society behaves, and how they interact with their children. For example, in ancient Greece, artifacts recovered there testify that children were simply not given toys to play with as in the modern world. The cruel ritual of leaving a sick child on a hillside for dead, seems to indicate a lack of attention to the young (Lord 16). The same is true of today’s society. As you can see with the number of toy stores in our society, we find toys of great value to our lives and enjoy giving them to children as gifts. Ask just about any young girl what she wants for Christmas and you’ll undoubtedly get the same answer: “A Barbie.” But what exactly has caused this baby boomer Barbie craze, and how did the entire world get so caught up in it? The answer lies in Ruth Handler’s vision for the first children’s adult doll. Mrs. Handler’s eleven and one-half-inch chunk of plastic began causing problems even before it’s public debut in 1959, yet has managed to become one of America’s favorite dolls.
Heppermann, C. M. (2010). The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: A Doll's History and Her Impact on Us. Horn Book Magazine, 86(6), 119-120. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
I miss her and I’ll miss her always. My aunt, Catherine passed away on Christmas 1997, and it was the biggest chock for my whole family and me. I was living in Syria at that time and my parents flew to Switzerland for the funeral.