In this week's blog, we were asked to interpret and annotate the podcast What You Don’t Know (Lulu Wang). In this podcast, Lulu struggles with her family’s decision not to tell her Grandmother about her diagnosis of terminal cancer. This is the custom in China, but it goes against Lulu's western beliefs. I will share with you my opinion on the family’s decision, and then I will tell you about a decision I made to lie to protect a loved one.
The Chinese custom of telling the family first about serious health conditions is different than what is done in this country, but it does hold some merit. Often the patients are too ill to process the information and make appropriate medical decisions. This allows the family to break the news to the patient as gently as possible. Like Lulu, I too was shocked when I heard the family’s decision not to tell her grandmother Nainai about her terminal cancer. I felt like that decision was cheating her out of completing unfinished tasks and dreams as well as giving her time to make her final goodbyes. As the story progressed and I learned more about the reasons why the family came to that decision, my opinion changed. When Lulu’s mother explained that Nainai had lied to her husband about his diagnosis of terminal cancer, it showed that Nainai believed in custom of withholding poor prognosis from the patient. The information about her hiding her breast cancer from her family to not distress them, again showed how important it was to Nainai to spare her family hardship. If you look at her past actions, it is evident that Nainai herself would have agreed with the family’s decision not to tell her. I too have had to make the decision not to tell a loved one about an important health diagnosis. Two years ago, I was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer. If I had a nine-hour whipple surgery, the doctor thought I could gain enough time to see my daughter graduate High School that spring. I was very skeptical with that diagnosis. I have had multiple surgeries in the past to remove suspicious tumors and they had all turned out to be benign. When I voiced my doubts to the doctor, he assured me that the chances of this not being cancer were slim to none. We would have to come up with a plan to attack this cancer and get as much time as possible. Later that night, my daughter Lauren came to visit me in the hospital. She asked if they found out what was wrong with me, and I told her that there was another one of those annoying tumors in a pretty difficult place and the next day I would get a very long and complicated surgery to get it out. It would take a while to recover, but then everything would be fine. Looking back, I think I told her that lie to not only reassure her but to also reassure myself. If I didn’t accept the truth, then it wasn’t real. As it turned out I was right. I had a rare low aggressive form of pancreatic cancer that only 2% of patients get. The surgery removed all of it and I would not need any treatments at that time. The current plan is to watch very closely and if it returns we can attack it then. I feel like the lie I told that night paid off for my daughter and myself.
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This week the assignment was to read and annotate My Name is Margaret (Maya Angelou). The story is about a young black girl named Margaret growing up in the South and the difference between how they were raised and treated compared to white girls. When Margaret goes to work for a wealthy white woman, she found herself a victim of disrespect by having her name changed for a matter of convenience. This is understandably very upsetting to her and she struggles with how to cope with it. This blog is to answer the following two questions: 1. Did you agree with Margaret’s choice to break the casserole dish and two green glass cups, and 2. When have you made an important choice to either resist or not resist oppression, challenge the status quo, or refuse to obey an authority figure?
Question 1 I can’t even imagine what it was like for Margaret to grow up under those circumstances and I know that she needed to make a stand, but I do not agree with Margaret’s choice to break the casserole dish and two green glass cups. I understand that she felt angry at Mrs. Cullinan for bending to what seemed to be peer pressure from the “speckled faced” woman to change her name to Mary, but I believe that Margaret should have tried to find another solution before deliberately hurting someone else. I realize that she was afraid of how her mother would react, but I believe she would probably be more upset by her deliberately breaking the china and losing her job than if she had quit her job to stand up for herself. Margaret should have tried to talk to Mrs. Cullinan and let her know how she felt about having her name changed and what her name meant to her. The fact that Mrs. Cullinan was ignoring her lateness and poor work may have indicated that she felt guilty for what she was doing. If after that Mrs. Cullinan did not relent, then she should have left her job without causing violence and explained to her mother why she had to leave. “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind” (M. K. Ghandi) Question 2 I was 14 years old when my grandmother took me to go see the pastor of our church. “It is high time you got baptized and joined the church” she said. You see all the other children my age had been baptized and had joined our church years ago. I had been dodging it with excuses, fake illnesses, school obligations, just about anything I could think up. I just didn’t know how to tell them that I didn’t believe in God. I was afraid that I would lose all my friends at church and worse I would disappoint my grandmother. My grandmother was the strongest women I knew, and I was terrified to disobey her. But if I went through with the baptism I would feel like I was making a mockery of their beliefs. When I finally went in to see Pastor Brad he sent my grandmother to see the church choir director so that we could talk alone. After a few minutes of conversation about church activities that I had been involved with, he asked me “I feel that you have been avoiding joining the church, do you feel that you are ready, or would you feel like you need more time?”. I started to cry. I told him that I loved the people and participating at church, but I did not believe that there was one supreme being controlling our existence. He assured me that I was welcome there and I could to participate as much as I wanted in the activities. My beliefs or non-beliefs were my own and I should not feel guilty or share them if I did not want to. On the way home in the car my grandmother asked me “What date did you decide on for your Baptism?” I took a deep breath and told her “Pastor Brad and I agreed that now is not the time and that I would know when I was ready.” I will never know if Pastor Brad said anything to my grandmother later, but she never asked about my baptism again. I can not even compare my small religious rebellion to what Margaret struggled with. To be a child and try to stand up for your rights is daunting in this day and was even more so in that time. |
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April 2018
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