I agree an disagree at the same time. The reason I agree is because the family knows that NaiNai is sick but NaiNai doesn't know that she only has three months to live so they lied to keep her from ever knowing that she has cancer I think if Lulu would of told NaiNia that she has cancer NaiNai problaby would have been to busy worring about her illness then her family and to keep NaiNai from suffering. What I disagree is that they instead of throwing a goodbye party they threw a wedding party when nobody was getting married so her family lied about two things. My family had this same problem with my grandmother on my dad's side of the family. I was about twenty going on twenty-one when i heard the news from my mother telling me that my grandmother was in the hospital. My mom didnt want to tell me what caused my grandmother to be in the hospital until they sent her home. I didn't even know she was in the hospital all my mom told me was that your grandmother is home. A week later my dad told me that his mother is diagnosed with liver cancer. But she doesn't know that only me and my parents an sister do. For my grandmother to be ill she didn't seem to show it at all. She still walked around and told me stories about my dad and all of his siblings when they were kids. That was always my favorite part of visiting my grandmother listening to her stories on how she was raised, She even showed me pictures of my dad and all of his sisters when they were young. My grandmother smoked a lot of cigarettes, she told me she'd been smoking since she was a teenager, and every time she went to the doctors they couldn't find anything wrong with her you would think they would have found something wrong because of all the smoking she did. So a year goes by and my mom and dad notice that my grandmother started getting really forgetful about things, she had a hard time trying to form her words into sentences, she had dementia an me and my mom knew something wasn't right but we still kept it low, so Easter came around because her birthday landed on easter. So we threw an easter/birthday party for her, but she didn't know this was her last party. She got to see all her kids and grand kids and great grand kids even took pictures and everything. Then her dementia had gotten so bad they had to put her in a nursing home, again nobody told her that she was sick, me and my parent known for awhile the rest of the family didn't know she was sick. I wanted to tell her so bad but i just kept it to myself, because i don't want to scare anybody or make any of the family members worry about it. Another year goes by and i am now twenty-one years old. I was coming home from work and all of a sudden i get a phone call from my mom, she crying hystarically i couldn't barely understand what she was trying to say and i hear other people in the backround crying as well, and she finally said the words "grandma passed away" I was lost with words nobody told me that she was back in the hospital again until my mom called me an told me the news. I was speechless I didn't know what to say i felt guilt, anger, saddnest, regret all at once all i could do was sit on the phone an cry. I felt like that it was my fault an my parents fault for not telling her that she was ill and not have long to live. But me and my parents made that decision and i had to respect that decision, beccause if we would of told her she wouldn't have lived as long as she did, she lived for four years since i was eight-teen until i was twenty-one that's when she passed away. Both my parents and i were glad she lived that long to see all her family smile and be happy one last time before she past i think thats what she would have really wanted. So I can completely understand where Lulu and her family are coming from.
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9/22/2017 08:18:17 am
Jeanetta, I found the similarities in your personal narrative and synopsis on Lulu's story alarming. I admire how rationally you were were able to discuss Lulu's situation in class, even though you had a perspective that none of us did. This is my favorite writing of yours so far. I think that's because you were able to connect with your audience through personal experience. I would have liked to have seen more details from the story in your first portion of this post, but I still enjoyed reading!
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Jesse Coffman
9/22/2017 02:37:02 pm
Jeanetta, first of all, sorry for the loss of your grandmother. After reading your narrative I'm facing the same difficult question I did after listening to Lulu Wang's podcast. Was the choice your family and Lulu's family made the right one? I am still not completely sure if I were in a situation like this I'd be able to maintain the lie, but then I think, would your grandmother and NaiNai have lived for as long as they did if they'd been told when they were going to die?
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